Indonesia: Pictorial Warnings Hit Cigarette Manufacturers Hard

Source from:  The Jakarta Post  08/15/2014

The government regulation that requires cigarette manufacturers to include pictorial health warnings on their products has begun to have an impact on companies.

Muhammad Guntur, the owner of the Janur Kuning cigarette factory in Kudus, Central Java, said his cigarette sales had decreased by 10 percent since the Government Regulation (PP) No.109/2012 on tobacco control that mandated the inclusion of pictorial health warnings on cigarette packets took effect in June this year.

He related the decline to consumers' discomfort as they saw disturbing images of cigarette-caused health problems on the packets.

"Our sales have continued to decline since we were required to include pictorial health warnings on our products," said Guntur as quoted by kompas.com in Kudus on Wednesday.

He said that consumers had tended to shift to lower-quality cigarettes which were exempt from pictorial-warning inclusion requirements.

"We are sure that such a decline is temporary in nature because smokers will eventually get used to seeing such horrible images," said Guntur.

Cigarette manufacturers have been given until Aug.24 to implement the mandatory pictorial-warning requirement which is based on the 2009 Law on Health. Enditem