Tobacco Industry in China
Rocco Rorandelli /TerraProject / PictureTank
To make up for loses at home, Western cigarette manufacturers have moved aggressively into markets overseas. In recent years, Asia has become the main market for tobacco companies, driven by the sheer number of potential tobacco users and the growing economy.
Today China is ranks number one in number of smokers and in tobacco production. The Chinese National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC) is the world’s largest tobacco company. A state monopoly, it employs 520,000 workers, produces 500 brands and has 183 factories, 150 tobacco drying plants, and 30 research institutes. A total of ten million people (tobacco company workers, farmers and shop owners) make a living in China’s mostly-state-run tobacco industry. China is also the country with the most smokers, more than 330 million, representing one third of the world’s smokers.
The World Health Organization and several NGOs warn against the uncontrolled spread of tobacco consumption, showing how tobacco claims more than 700,000 lives every year. The number might reach 3 million by 2050. Their task is particularly difficult in tobacco-producing rural provinces such as Yunnan, where this cash crop is the only taxed one and government revenues heavily rely on cultivation and cigarette manufacturing. Tobacco is here considered the only source of economic growth.
