Hong Kong smokers to escape proposed tax hike in budget
Anti-smoking campaigners' bid to double tax set to fail as finance chief is still waiting to judge impact of last year's rise in tobacco duty
The tax on tobacco will not rise in the upcoming budget despite a campaign to double the duty on cigarettes in a bid to get more Hongkongers to kick the habit.
A person familiar with the situation said Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah would hold fire on any increase this year because the government was still studying the impact of his decision to raise tax by 20 cents a cigarette in last year's budget.
"It is quite rare for the government to raise the duty in two consecutive years but we won't rule out the possibility of further increases in future," the person said.
The administration is also concerned about the increase in cigarette smuggling - the number of cases rose to 11,546 in 2014, from 11,161 in 2013 and 10,910 in 2012, figures from the Customs and Excise Department show.
However, the number of individual, black-market cigarettes seized fell to some 52 million last year, compared to 89 million in 2013 and 76 million in 2012.
The Council on Smoking and Health (Cosh) had appealed for Tsang to double tobacco tax on the grounds that it would cut the smoking rate among over-15-year-olds by about 1 percentage point within a couple of years. The proportion of those aged over 15 who smoke is estimated at 10.7 per cent, about 650,000 people.