LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
Tobacco is lethal and addictive and kills half of the people who use it.
Globally, 5 million people die from tobacco related disease each year.
In the Western Pacific Region, tobacco use accounts for two deaths each minute.
There are many things that we can do to discourage the use of tobacco.
But the most powerful and cost‑effective way of controlling tobacco use is through tax increases that raise the price of tobacco.
Studies have shown that increasing the price of tobacco by 10% will decrease consumption by 8% in low and middle‑income countries.
This is the reason why today we have convened representatives from two important sectors: finance and health.
Health and finance ministries must work hand‑in‑hand to reduce tobacco consumption and save lives and "enlarge the pie", meaning we need to increase the sources of funds for health and development in countries.
Raising tobacco taxes and prices is fundamental part of the global tobacco control agenda.
The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in Article 6 calls for parties to take into account tax and price policies as part of overall health policy.
Taxes should be raised to reduce tobacco consumption and all tobacco products should be taxed at similar rates to prevent product substitution.
Higher tobacco prices will encourage people to stop smoking, prevent young people from starting, and reduce the quantity of tobacco consumed among smokers.
Higher taxes are very effective in reducing tobacco use among vulnerable groups such as young people, pregnant women and low‑income smokers.
Tobacco taxation raises revenues for the government while benefiting public health.
This is a "win-win" solution.
The Regional Action Plan for the Tobacco Free Initiative in the Western Pacific Region (2010‑2014) calls for countries to work towards having all tobacco products subject to excise taxation and to work towards excise taxes of at least 60% of retail price.
The higher the percentage, the better.
Countries are further encouraged to work towards dedicating a significant part of the revenue from tobacco taxes to health promotion and tobacco control, including treatment of tobacco dependence.
Tobacco taxation is also supported by the Health Financing Strategy for the Asia Pacific Region (2010‑2015) that advocates increasing investment and public spending on health to progress towards universal coverage.
Making the right decision on tobacco taxes can have a profound impact on health systems as a whole.+
In my native country, the Republic of Korea, tobacco taxes have been successfully used for health insurance and health promotion — areas where we can make a difference.
This training workshop is an important step in the fight against tobacco.
It is not often that the World Health Organization invites finance and taxation experts and technocrats to work with us on public health.
We hope that this training workshop will enable you to develop policy options that are relevant and useful for your countries and that support your overall economic policies.
We hope that through this workshop we will be able to address some of the industry claims that have prevented increases of taxes in the past.
It is not true that tax increases will result in lost revenue and will impact negatively on the whole economy.
On the contrary, the impact of increases in tobacco taxes on other sectors is likely to be positive as funds that could have been spent for tobacco will be spent on other goods and services.
It is also not true that tobacco taxes are the primary reason for cigarette smuggling.
The World Bank has demonstrated that levels of smuggling tend to increase with the degree of corruption in the country.
Many countries have increased tobacco taxes without experiencing smuggling or illicit production.
We are also pleased to have with us our counterparts from the ministries of health.
We hope that this training workshop will make you feel more comfortable working on taxation policies, an area that may be new to many of you.
We look forward to hearing how you can advocate and mobilize political support for stronger taxation measures on tobacco.
We are honoured to welcome Dr Kelly Henning, Project Director, Global Health Programmes of the Bloomberg Philanthropies, who has flown from New York to join.
The Bloomberg Initiative has been instrumental in scaling up our work in tobacco control in the Western Pacific Region.
The Bloomberg Initiative has made it possible to support strong policies for tobacco control through the MPOWER package, which has provided countries with concrete guidance on what can be done to reduce demand for tobacco products.
Dr Henning's presence here today is a strong signal of how important and how seriously we must all take action to raise prices and taxes on tobacco.
In the future WHO will continue to make tobacco taxation a high priority in tobacco control.
I look forward to hearing of the progress of your work and wish you all a productive training workshop, and an enjoyable stay in Manila.
Thank you.