The Bangladeshi government have drafted a new policy discouraging foreign investment into the tobacco industry, The Financial Express reported.

The National Tobacco Control Policy has recently been drafted in order to restrict foreign direct investment in the tobacco industry in Bangladesh. This comes as part of an overall attempt to decrease tobacco consumption within the country. The Financial Express reported that in 2018 Bangladesh received USD 3.61 billion in foreign investment and of that, USD 1.47 billion were generated by the Japanese acquisition of Akij Group’s tobacco business.
However, the report states that, according to the anti-tobacco research organisation, Progotir Jonno Gyan, over 162,100 people a year die in Bangladesh due to tobacco related reasons. The draft policy will not only control foreign investment in the tobacco industry, it will also encourage Bangladeshi farmers to grow crops other than tobacco and no new licenses will be issued to factories wishing to produce tobacco products. Devices such as electronic cigarettes, including the production and trading of, will also be banned.
According to The Financial Express, the draft refers to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey 2017, which states that around 35.3 per cent of adults in Bangladesh consume tobacco in some form and nearly 7 per cent of schoolchildren. The former Finance Adviser A B Mirza Azizul Islam was quoted as saying “new investment in the tobacco sector should be discouraged”.