JAKARTA: Indonesia will raise its cigarette excise tax by an average of 10.5 percent next year to safeguard the health of the public, the finance minister said on Friday.
The planned tax increase will follow a 11.3 percent rise this year, and the government will also intensify its crackdown on the illegal circulation of cigarettes, Sri Mulyani Indrawati told reporters.
“Cigarettes are a commodity that can harm the health of the people, so their distribution needs to be limited,” the former World Bank managing director said. “Excise taxes are a way to limit that.”
Cigarette excise taxes currently contribute 10-12 percent to the state budget, compared with 11.68 percent last year and 12.29 percent in 2014, according to the finance ministry. Indonesia is one of the world’s fastest-growing markets for tobacco products, with about $16 billion of cigarettes sold last year, an increase of 13 percent from 2014, says market research firm Euromonitor International.
Part of the reason for that growth is the relatively cheap price of cigarettes in the country with the world’s fourth-largest population, where two-thirds of men are estimated to be smokers.
A pack of Marlboros sells for around 25,000 rupiah ($1.92) in Jakarta, compared with S$13 ($9.53) in Singapore and $13 in New York.
