YOURSAY | ‘This will lead to high prices and low profits, and more companies will close.’

Illegal cigarettes push tobacco company to close PJ factory

Sleepy: My take on this is diminishing investment returns (DIR). British American Tobacco (BAT) is a listed company and making good returns is their business proposition. Maintaining a manufacturing plant involves a higher investment cost than a marketing arm.

High sin tax reduces investment returns and closing down this plant is a good decision from a DIR point-of-view. The question now is whether others will follow.

Nehru: The very large increases in sin tax is to cover the illicit money outflows and the black hole sucking out the nation's money. Taxes especially the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will keep increasing to fill the deficit.

This will lead to high prices and low profits, and more companies will close.

The MNCs are okay as they can source from their regional branches. Malaysia is sinking and we are looking at higher unemployment too.

Our ministers need to resign and put capable officers to administer the country and stop the corruption, as it is going to make us poorer.

Dont Just Talk: Putrajaya will lose another few hundred million in taxes paid by BAT. And how will PM Najib Razak's government find other sources to replace the loss, if not by cutting other subsidies or increasing GST.

Sleepy: Illegal cigarettes have been around even in the early 80s, but has been conveniently brought up to counter increases in sin tax.

Anonymous_40bb: On the contrary to what others have commented here, I'd like to see this as an act to drive out sin products such as cigarettes and alcohol.

It will not be easy for new companies to come into Malaysia to operate a cigarette manufacturing plant in the future.

By allowing illegal imports and introduction of vape, I see it as an Islamic move to remove giants like BAT by diminishing their profits outright.

In the future, we will be like Qatar and Dubai whereby un-Islamic products will be banned from coming into Malaysia, which will include alcohol and pork.

This is a first step to uproot these giant lobbyists. Being a non-smoker myself and middle-aged, I personally prefer Malaysia turns into a Dubai or Qatar.

That is, if we don't steal, rob, commit adultery, etc. By all means, implement hudud too.

It will make our citizens rich, healthy, educated and turn Malaysia into a multiracial, multireligious, multicultural Islamic paradise. Why not?

Sideview: Good riddance. Less lung cancer-related deaths in the future.

Freethinker: Most are missing the big picture. When a business is being shut down not due to demand and supply factors, it literally means rampant illegal activities has forced them to close.

Like what others said, BAT's factory closure will not be fewer smokers, but there will be more illegal trade going on in the country unhindered.

Yours and My Malaysia: I am totally against smoking and vaping. That said, the issue here is not the sale of cigarettes by BAT.

They will, I believe, remain here as a marketing unit, selling their products by importing from other BAT manufacturing sites (and thus continue polluting our lungs and air).

The issue is the availability of contraband cigarettes freely and the enforcement agencies' total lack of enforcement.

The root is a corruption mentality that starts from the very top. This same problem applies to liquor and beer.

We are fast becoming a morally bankrupt nation hiding behind a facade of religious "purity" that is a sham by all means.

Odin Tajué: Now that the democratically-elected government has lost the anticipated massive revenues from cigarettes by levying high taxes on the product, the next step is to increase the tax on liquor by, say, 1,000 percent.

That will compensate for the loss as well as drastically reduce the number of drunkards and of injuries and damage caused by drunks, particularly those behind the wheel.

In addition, stop giving a licence to import and sell liquor - and that includes beer, shandy and any drinks containing spirit - and ban nightclubs, bars, karaoke joints and any similar establishments, especially where GROs (guest relations officers) of various nationalities, including China dolls, of course, are employed.

That way, Malaysians will lead a healthy, accident-free life. With nothing much to do, they will also become religious. Nothing to worry about there. Heaven has lots of space.

Yum seng to that, eh?

Anonymous #7856234569: So the main cause is "the high excise environment". Are they too polite to spell out "terrible increase in taxes" because people can't afford to smoke it?

Baiyuensheng: The government should close them - cigarette smoking is the way the West enslaves millions worldwide.

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