Pros and cons have arisen regarding the Indonesian government’s plan to implement a new policy of standardizing cigarette packaging without brand identity in the Draft Regulation of the Minister of Health (RPMK) as an implementing regulation of Government Regulation (PP) Number 28/2024 [1].
Some news reports stated that this regulation has the potential to cause various negative impacts on the tobacco industry (IHT), but how do Indonesians themselves see it? Do they agree with this new policy?
Hence, in response to this issue, on 21-22 November 2024, Snapcart conducted a survey to figure out Indonesians’ opinions on this policy and how it will impact the cigarette consumers’ smoking habits.
From 1.400 respondents aged 18+, we discovered that amongst 27% of all smokers in Indonesia, 70% of them have already heard the news about this new policy.
Furthermore, while we see lots of contras on the news, our survey found out that most Indonesians agree on this new policy. And interestingly, the majority of smokers in Indonesia (54%) are also supporting it.
This survey also found out that the main reasons why people in Indonesia agree on this cigarette new regulation are because they (42%) believe that the government’s policy will bring good effects for many people in Indonesia, and 44% hope that the cigarette consumption among society will be reduced, including preventing the rise of the new smokers.
On the other hand, we also found an intriguing fact, where the ones who disagree on this policy are mostly non-smokers (24%). Only 18% of smokers who do not like this new cigarette regulation.
Not because worrying that this regulation might causing various negative impacts on the tobacco industry (IHT), most people in Indonesia disagree on this government’s plan because they are afraid that this policy might open a chance for illegal cigarette manufacturers to easily committing fraud by re-packaging their products into this plain packaging, and not get caught. You can check their detailed answers in the infographic above.
The Effect of the Increasing Level of Tobacco Excise Tax
Since this plain cigarette packaging regulation will affect Indonesian smokers in choosing cigarettes to buy, we also asked them about their smoking habit if this policy is implemented soon.
Interestingly, instead of switching to other alternatives for smoking, just like last year when they were going to face the effect of the rising tobacco excise tax [2], many of them now said they will reduce their cigarette consumption, and even stop smoking if this plain packaging policy is implemented soon.
Moreover, according to the infographic above, among all the government’s policies on tobacco selling, Indonesians, both smokers and non-smokers think that the increasing level of tobacco excise tax is the most effective one to maintain public health that does not bring lots of disadvantages for many parties. And the change in Indonesian smokers’ habits in the previous paragraph might indicate the success of that previous policy.
For more information, contact us at partners@snapcart.global.
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