Market & legal data of the tobacco alternatives sector in Asia

17th May 2024: Malaysia: The health minister said yesterday (16th May) that the regulations implementing the Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Act 2024 will be issued in June 2024, press reports. These regulations are needed to implement the law, published in February 2024, which created a regulatory framework for e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.
14th May 2024: US - Federal: The White House has released a statement on what it refers to as “China’s unfair trade practices concerning technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation”, which it says “are threatening American businesses and workers”. In response, president Biden is directing his trade representative to increase certain tariffs. These include the tariff rate on lithium-ion batteries (used in non-electric vehicles), which will increase from 7.5% to 25% in 2026. This would impact batteries used in vaping and heated tobacco products (HTPs).
14th May 2024: Vietnam: Prime minister Pham Minh Chinh has signed Official Dispatch 47/CD-TTg requesting several ministries to strengthen the control of electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco and take action to prevent their harmful effects. Specifically, the dispatch asks the Ministry of Health to promote solutions to manage these products, the Ministry of Finance to instruct customs to strictly inspect and control transportation of illegal products at borders, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to strengthen control over organisations that trade and store the products, among other requests.
6th May 2024: United Arab Emirates: The Federal Tax Authority reported that in 2023 its control efforts resulted in the seizure and confiscation of nearly 21.29m units of tobacco products that didn’t bear the Digital Tax Stamp (DTS). Last year, it was announced that in 2022, a total of 5.5m units of tobacco products without the DTS were confiscated.
6th May 2024: Vietnam: In a meeting organised by the Social Committee of the National Assembly, the Ministry of Industry and Trade insisted on the creation of a pilot programme for e-cigarettes and heated tobacco, press reports. During the process of developing a policy on the issue, all other ministries agreed with the pilot project, except for the Ministry of Health, which advised amending the Tobacco Harm Prevention and Control Act to ban these products. At the end of the meeting, the chairman of the Social Committee suggested that the Ministry of Health coordinate with relevant ministries and stakeholders to review legal documents to "prevent the harmful effects of electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco".
2nd May 2024: Philippines: House of Representatives member Ray Reyes, of the minority Anakalusugan Party List, urged legislators to review the Vape Law to transfer the mandate to regulate vaping and heated tobacco products back from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He said: “We’ve been warning everyone for years on the mistake of putting the vape law under DTI supervision.” Only two years have passed, he added, “and now we see the consequences of it”, referring to growing concern over e-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated lung injury (EVALI) among youth.
30th April 2024: Pakistan: Muzammil Aslam, finance adviser to the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, reported to the press that the province is considering increasing the tax established for oral tobacco (naswar) to PKR20 ($0.07) per kg. Oral tobacco is currently taxed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of the four Pakistan provinces, at a rate of PKR2.50 ($0.009) per kg, while it is subject to a specific excise tax at the national level.
30th April 2024: Bahrain: The minister of industry and commerce has issued decision 34/2024, authorising the Ministry of Health to monitor the implementation of the Electronic Nicotine Products standards for one year. The Ministry of Health was mandated in March 2023 to monitor the implementation for a period of one year under decision 26/2023.
24th April 2024: Vietnam: Yesterday (23rd April) at a meeting in the National Assembly, organised by the Social Affairs Committee, the Ministry of Health reiterated the need for a total ban on e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. Other parliamentary delegates believe that it is necessary to specify the definitions of the products in legal documents in order to create a basis on which it would be possible to identify and warn about their harmful effects.
18th April 2024: Uzbekistan: The Association of Tobacco Industry Enterprises of Uzbekistan (Tamakisoz) has disagreed with the Ministry of Health’s recent proposal to ban e-cigarettes, e-liquids, heated tobacco consumables, and nicotine and tobacco devices. According to Tamakisoz, this proposal is expected to have an adverse impact on the state, businesses and society.
15th April 2024: Uzbekistan: The Ministry of Health has published a bill for public consultation that would ban devices for tobacco heating, heated tobacco consumables, e-cigarettes and e-liquids in the country. With the bill, the government seeks to protect the lives and health of the population, especially children and adolescents. The public consultation will end on 18th April 2024, and if the bill is adopted it will enter into force three months after its official publication.

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