Afraid that the world economic crises would hit hard the local economy, the Hubei Province in Central China decided to do something about it: an economy stimulus plan based on cigarettes. That is right, cigarettes!
Going against all the health care trends in the whole world, the local government issued a regulation determining quotas of cigarettes to be consumed by all public employees. To those that do not comply, the new regulation stipulates fines according to the level of non consumption.
Not only quantity but also brands were specified to make sure that the increase of consumption stays within the province borders. Apparently a task force has been created to supervise and regularly inspect ashtrays in public buildings to make sure no cigarette with brands from outside the province are been consumed.
According to local officials the plan will not only generate more revenue to the local commerce, tobacco industry but also to the government itself, due to heavy taxes imposed to smoking products. The expectation is to boost the tobacco consumption to 230,000 packs of cigarettes, generating a spending of something around 4 million renminbi this year.
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