03 Mar 2010. The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) has received a five-year USD 7 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide Southeast Asian policymakers with research-based evidence on improving tax systems for tobacco control.

This project will focus on improving tax systems for tobacco control in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines and Vietnam.

Bungon Ritthiphakdee, director of the Bangkok-based SEATCA, said that “higher taxes on tobacco lead to higher prices for tobacco products, which immediately discourage non-smokers from starting and current smokers from continuing with their harmful habit”. (pi)

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