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In today's podcast, experts debate higher tobacco taxes and other efforts to reduce skyrocketing rates of tobacco consumption in China
在今天的播客中，專家對高額的煙草稅率以及減少中國煙草消費率所作出的努力進行了討論。
Over 10 years ago, China became a party to the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on TobaccoControl, an international treaty intended to reduce tobacco-related diseases and deaths. The country's toplegislature formally ratified the convention in August 2005, but implementation has stalled. Now experts are saying the country must redouble its efforts and explore higher taxation to reduce tobacco smoking. Yang Gonghuan, the former deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and an advocate of tobacco control said that measures on tobacco control remain weak. In 2012, Beijing issued a document setting targets for tobacco control for the following three years, including drafting a national law on tobacco control to reduce the youth smoking rate from 11.5 percent in 2010 to 8.5 percent by 2015, and cutting the adult smoking rate to less than 25 percent. Yang said almost no progress has been made in two years. Hu Dewei, a health economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said increasing tax rates and prices are the most effective measures in tobacco control and come with the lowest administrative costs. Hu estimated that raising the cost of each pack of cigarettes by 1 yuan would spur 4.1 million people to quit smoking and add 85.4 billion yuan to government coffers. Some 128 billion packs of cigarettes are sold every year in the country, and the tax ratio per pack is low. In China, some 67 percentof the cost of a pack of cigarettes is tax, while the figure in developed countries is 200 percent. Duringthis year's meeting of the top legislature in March, the minister of finance, Lou Jiwei, said that the consumption tax can be levied on both the production and wholesale stages of the industry. His statement was interpreted as a signal that changes were on the way. Meanwhile a tax administration official said the current economic situation provides a good opportunity for raising taxes, and efforts by tobacco control advocates have begun to influence policymakers.
10多年前，中國成為了《世界衛生組織煙草控制框架公約》的一員，這是一項意圖減少煙草疾病和死亡的國際性公約。中國最高立法機關在2005年8月正式認可此項公約，但是沒有進行進一步的實施。如今，許多專家認為中國必須更加努力來進一步增加高額稅率減少吸煙。中國疾病預防控制中心前副主任楊功煥，她也是煙草控制的有力倡導者，她認為國家對于煙草的控制仍然非常有限。2012年，北京出臺了未來三年煙草控制目標，包括對煙草控制起草法律，從而來減少青少年吸煙率，2010年，青少年吸煙率是11.5%，到2015年之前，要將這一數字較少到8.5%，成人吸煙率減少到25%以下。楊認為這兩年沒有明顯的進步。伯克利加利福尼亞大學健康經濟學教授Hu Dewei認為增加稅率和價格是打擊煙草的最有利的措施，而且所造成的管理成本也是最低的。胡預計將每盒煙草的價格提高一元將促使4100萬人戒煙，政府也將增加854億的收入。中國每年銷售1280億盒香煙，每盒香煙的稅率非常低。在中國，每盒香煙費用的67%都歸功于稅收，而在發達國家這一數字是200%。今年3月，中國最高立法機關所進行的會議中，財政部部長樓繼偉認為我們能夠在煙草生產和煙草產業的批發階段征收消費稅。他的言論傳遞了一個信號，即中國將作出改變。與此同時，稅務管理有關人員認為目前的經濟狀況將為提高稅收提供良機，煙控倡導者也將開始影響法律制定者的抉擇。
For Caixin Online, this is Diana Bates.
這是戴安娜·貝茨為您帶來的財新新聞報道。
譯文屬可可英語原創，未經允許，不得轉載。
