AS IF in a puff of smoke, it was gone. Public outcry has forced a local government in central China to back down on an order to force officials to smoke more cigarettes to help boost the local economy.
As reported in The Irish Times yesterday, Gongan county in the poor province of Hubei, central China, had ruled that state employees must smoke at least 23,000 packets of cigarettes a year, worth almost four million yuan (€440,000), to help boost government coffers.
However, the humbled local government removed the ruling in an abject self-criticism on its website, saying the local Communist Party had quickly implemented reform measures after the widespread media coverage of the plan.
“Gongan county people’s government has decided to immediately withdraw the ruling . . . this plan is obviously mandatory, and it should be corrected,” ran the contrite entry, saying the local government’s actions were “inappropriate” and it had violated rules about the issuing of notices.
Under the ruling, bureaucrats who failed to meet smoking targets or were caught smoking brands from other provinces would have been fined.
The edict had been issued to prevent the distribution of cigarettes from neighbouring provinces and “to protect tax revenues and consumers’ rights”, it said.
China is the world’s largest cigarette producer and the Chinese are the world’s most committed smokers, with a growing market of about 320 million making it a lure for multinational producers and a focus of international health concerns.