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Japan Tobacco Inc. said the country’s government will sell its stake in the company “eventually” as Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama may want to raise funds to stem rising public debt.
“What we hear is that they think about privatization, which includes us,” Japan Tobacco’s executive deputy president Munetaka Takeda told a briefing in London today. “So, eventually it’s likely to happen.”
Japan’s government owns 50.01 percent of the cigarette maker, having sold shares three times since the company was founded in 1985. Most recently, the state sold a 14.5 percent stake in June 2004. Public debt in Japan is approaching twice the size of gross domestic product, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“The government will look cautiously at the stock market, so it’s unlikely there’ll be a sale overnight or tomorrow, nor will they dispose of everything at once,” Takeda said.
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Japan's new administration is considering raising cigarette taxes to European levels to help pay for an ambitious domestic spending plan, in a potential threat to partially state-owned Japan Tobacco Inc.
Shares of Japan Tobacco—the world's third largest cigarette company by sales volume, after Altria Group Inc. of the U.S. and British American Tobacco PLC of the U.K.—fell more than 4% Monday before recovering and ending down 0.9% to 254,300 yen, or $2,824.93.
The sharp moves followed comments Sunday by a top Japanese health official during a television interview that raised the possibility of the tax increase.
"Tobacco poses health problems. It may be necessary to raise [the tobacco tax] to the levels in Europe," said Akira Nagatsuma, minister of health, labor and welfare.
The health ministry already has asked the government's tax panel to increase the tobacco tax as part of tax reforms for fiscal 2010.
Shares of Japan Tobacco, the world's third largest cigarette company by sales volume after Altria Group Inc. of the U.S. and British American Tobacco PLC of the U.K., fell more than 4% Monday before recovering and ending down 0.9% to 254,300 yen, or $2,825.02. The sharp moves followed commments Sunday by a top Japanese health official during a television interview that raised the possibility.
''Tobacco poses health problems. It may be necessary to raise it [the tobacco tax] to the levels in Europe," said Akira Nagatsuma, minister of health, labor and welfare.
The health ministry already has asked the government's tax panel to increase the tobacco tax as part of fiscal 2010 tax reforms. An increase of 10 yen per cigarette - 10 times the amount of previous increases - is currently being debated.
Cigarettes in Japan are among the cheapest of any developed nation
YOKOHAMA (Kyodo) Police have turned a case over to prosecutors on an Ehime Prefecture man who allegedly threatened to shoot Kanagawa Gov. Shigefumi Matsuzawa for setting Japan's first local ordinance that bans smoking inside public facilities.
The 49-year-old smoker has admitted to the charges, saying he did it because he thought he would not be able to smoke if a similar ordinance was introduced in Ehime Prefecture, according to Kanagawa police.
"The rising antismoking mood has made me feel small," the shipbuilding worker was quoted by the police as saying. . . .
He is suspected of sending an e-mail to the prime minister's office from his mobile phone that said, "I will shoot the Kanagawa governor for banning smoking."
The percentage of smokers in Japan has fallen below a quarter of the adult population for the first time, with both men and women lighting up less, according to the results of a nationwide survey released Friday by Japan Tobacco Inc. (2914.TO).
In the annual survey, carried out in May by the world's third-largest tobacco producer by volume, 24.9% of respondents considered themselves to be smokers. The result is lower than last year's figure of 25.7%, and marks the lowest level since the company, known as JT, started compiling such data in 1965.
Japan had long been considered a smokers' paradise, with smoking rates hitting a peak of 49.4% in 1966. But the country has experienced a gradual decline in the number of smokers, due in part to an aging population, increased health consciousness and more stringent smoking regulations.
With slowing sales in Japan keeping a lid on revenue, JT is looking to gain a greater share of growing markets such as Russia and the Middle East
In the spring of 2008, the Tobacco Institute of Japan together with the associations of tobacco retailers and vending machine manufacturers introduced Taspo, "tobacco passport." At the time, the system seemed a reasonable enough solution to one of Japan's perennial problems -- underage smoking. However, Taspo now is reported to have found a new use -- helping investigators track down the movements of criminal suspects.
The Tobacco Institute of Japan, which oversees the Taspo system, revealed recently that personal data and records of specific tobacco purchases at Taspo-required vending machines were handed over to public prosecutors. . . .
One has to wonder whether the accumulation of data by businesses is for marketing research or for other purposes. When even the purchase of a pack of cigarettes becomes part of an information database, the surveillance of people's private lives by technological means has gone too far.
YOKOHAMA, JAPAN -- One plaintiff is a cancer patient. Another is represented by his widow. The third, has emphysema and rolls into the courtroom on a wheelchair with tubes trailing out of his nose.
The three Japanese are waging a minnow-vs.-whale battle against Big Tobacco in one of the world's most smoker-friendly countries. But precedent suggests they're likely to lose, and they hope their suit will at least draw attention to the dangers of smoking.
Even if they win, they're unlikely to dent the finances of Japan Tobacco Inc., a former monopoly still half-owned by the government. The three are asking for a total of 30 million yen ($320,000) from a company with 6.8 trillion yen ($72.8 billion) a year in sales.
Their larger goal, they say, is to gain stronger curbs on tobacco, and legal and social acceptance of a notion that much of the world now takes for granted: that smoking makes you sick.
They have a long way to go. . . .
The lawsuit demands sterner warning labels on cigarettes, a ban on cigarette vending machines, and an acknowledgment that smoking is addictive and harmful.
"When I began smoking, about 80 percent of men were smokers," Mizuno said. "The advertising phrase was, 'You're healthy when a cigarette tastes so good."'
When I began smoking, about 80 percent of men were smokers. The advertising phrase was, 'You're healthy when a cigarette tastes so good.'Masanobu Mizuno, one of the plaintiffs in the 4 1/2 year old suit against Japan Tobacco. Arguments have concluded; a decision is due by Jan. 20, 2010.
Japan Tobacco Inc., the world’s third-largest publicly traded cigarette maker, said first- quarter operating profit plunged 24 percent as domestic sales dropped and the yen gained.
Operating profit fell to 84.3 billion yen ($887 million) for the three months ended June from 110.5 billion yen a year earlier, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement today. Sales slipped 15 percent to 1.46 trillion yen from 1.72 trillion yen.
The maker of Camel and Mild Seven cigarettes is losing sales in Japan as the smoking rate falls and tighter tobacco controls are introduced. The yen’s rise against the dollar and other currencies eroded gains from overseas cigarette sales helped by the 2007 takeover of U.K.-based Gallaher Group Plc.
“Japan Tobacco was among victims by the global recession,” said Mitsuo Shimizu, an analyst at Tokyo-based Cosmo Securities Co. “It needs to seek growth outside Japan, which makes it more vulnerable to currency swings.”
The Tobacco Institute of Japan, the industry body of tobacco manufacturers, has turned over vending machine use logs on cigarette pack purchases by certain individual smokers to public prosecutors when they requested such information for investigative purposes, informed sources said Sunday. Such logs of ''taspo'' smart cards included records on when and at which vending machines the smokers bought cigarette packs, as well as their dates of birth, addresses and phone numbers, the sources said.
There has been a case in which the provided logs helped investigators find a person who had evaded some fines, the sources said. . . .
An institute official told Kyodo News, ''We have kept track of purchases-related logs to check if taspo cards that were stolen or for which reports of loss have been filed may have been used illicitly, and we basically would not provide them to third parties.''
''But we cannot help turning over such logs as well as the addresses, names, dates of birth and contacts of cardholders to investigative authorities as necessary if the authorities request the logs in writing in line with the Code of Criminal Procedure,'' the official said.
Japan’s convenience-store sales in June fell for the first time in 14 months, as customers spent less on cigarettes and lunchbox meals.
Sales at stores open more than a year dropped 2.3 percent to 605.9 billion yen ($6.44 billion), the Japan Franchise Association said in a statement today. Department store sales fell 8.8 percent in June, capping the worst half-year performance, the Japan Department Stores Association said in a separate release today.
Consumers in Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, have cut back on spending as unemployment rose to a five-year high and wages fell for the 12th straight month in May. Sales at convenience stores last year were also boosted with the introduction of an age verification card for vending-machine purchases of cigarettes, which increased customer traffic at chains including Seven & I Holdings Co.’s 7-Eleven and Lawson Inc.’s outlets.
Japan has banned smoking from most public places, including many city streets, but one company has given refuge to the dwindling ranks of tobacco addicts -- by opening smokers-only cafes.
Thick cigarette smoke wafts through the 'Cafe Tobacco' shops in the heart of Tokyo, filled with office workers and shoppers looking to take a quick puff, a habit increasingly frowned upon in a country long seen as a smokers' paradise.
"Nowadays smoking is considered an evil," said Tadashi Horiguchi, a board director of the coffee shop operator Towa Food Service Co, which recently opened its second smokers-only cafe in Tokyo and hopes to grow the business.
"We want to provide an oasis for smokers," Horiguchi said as air purifiers overhead sucked up clouds of blueish smoke from the crowded cafe in Shimbashi, a bar-lined city district known as "salaryman town."
Outside, a red sign with a picture of a smoking cigarette drew more customers, about 600 a day according to the manager Kazuhiro Kawano.
Cafe TobaccoTowa Food Service Co's smokers-only cafes in Tokyo.
Salaried workers feeling cornered by the ever-expanding ban on smoking in Tokyo can rest easy at a recently opened cafe in the Shinbashi district that caters exclusively to smokers.
At Cafe Tobacco, smoking is allowed on all three floors, according to its operator, Towa Food Service Co.
The cafe, with 44 places, opened near JR Shinbashi Station in April. Towa Food Service has also opened a second Tobacco Cafe in the nearby Yurakucho business district.
A sign posted at the entrance advises people with children and those under 20 to refrain from using the cafe.
Some Air Force base housing residents in the Pacific say they wish their commands would offer them the option of smoke-free housing.
Others — smokers and nonsmokers alike — believe the military shouldn’t have any say in whether people can smoke in the privacy of their personal, albeit government-provided, home.
The issue came up at a Yokota Air Base town hall meeting earlier this year after residents there learned that Misawa Air Base would ban smoking in its family housing apartment towers starting May 1. During the meeting, several residents said they have neighbors’ cigarette smoke flowing into their homes and asked if the base could ban smoking in the towers.
Misawa officials said they instituted the ban because they weren’t in compliance with an Air Force instruction that states "the rights of the nonsmokers will prevail." They’ve since added other types of housing units to the ban and set the goal of making the majority of housing smoke-free as units undergo renovations.
The instruction, titled "Tobacco Use in the Air Force," gives commanders the authority to "designate areas or buildings in dormitories or family housing smoke-free when there is a common air-handling unit for multiple individuals or families ... to ensure a healthy and safe environment for all residents."
People who eat lots of soy products have better lung function and are less likely to develop the smoking-associated lung disease COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). A new study has shown that consumption of a wide variety of soy products can be associated with a reduction in the risk of COPD and other respiratory symptoms.
Dr. Fumi Hirayama and Professor Andy Lee from Curtin University of Technology, Australia, worked with a team of respiratory physicians to poll 300 patients with COPD from six Japanese hospitals and 340 age-matched control subjects from the same areas as the patients about their soy intake. Dr. Hirayama said, "Soy consumption was found to be positively correlated with lung function and inversely associated with the risk of COPD. It has been suggested that flavonoids from soy foods act as an anti-inflammatory agent in the lung, and can protect against tobacco carcinogens for smokers. However, further research is needed to understand the underlying biological mechanism".
We've written before about Taspo, the RFID-chipped ID card that allows "of age" (20 or older) smokers to get their smokes through any of the nations 420,000 tobacco vending machines. Mostly the campaign has been a disaster for folks who own vending machines, a boom for convenience stores (where you don't need the cards), and and a burden for smokers who just want to buy a pack without registering themselves with Big Brother. . . .
Going by purely anecdotal evidence and personal experience, even the heaviest smokers want nothing to do with the card. For most, however, it's not a privacy issue, but one of pride: They don't want an official "smoking license", complete with a picture of themselves, to buy something that is their choice. In order to protect a small minority (teenagers) the rest of society must bear the burden of Taspo.
If tobacco makers are actually interested in selling their products and not just submitting to what will surely become complete regulation, they would be embracing vending machines with facial recognition, rather than making their customers file with the authorities. Of course, facial recognition doesn't always work, but it's a relatively non-invasive way to solve a problem that isn't such a big deal to begin with.
In the meantime, convenience stores should beware: Increased sales in your sector mean that you're next on the chopping block. Expect a full-on Taspo reader integrated into cash registers in no time.