Cambodia’s government has indicated a 2015 deadline for the enactment of a tobacco control law, which was first laid down in 2003, officials stated at a meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Tobacco Control. “I hope that the law will be adopted by the 2015 deadline. The government was committed to tobacco-control reform, but the enactment of this law was rather difficult. It takes a lot of time because it should go through many inter-ministerial committees,” stated, Ung Saran, deputy director of the government’s National Health Promotion Centre.

Among other tobacco regulations, the planned law proposed banning smoking in workplaces and on public transport, prohibiting tobacco advertising, and raising taxes on tobacco products, said Mom Kong, the executive director of the NGO Cambodia Movement for Health. He also stated that probably the law will be finalized before 2015. “It will not take more than until 2015 as is started in 2003. The law had already been reviewed and amended for several times according to suggestions from the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Commerce. “The planned law includes all of the commitments covered under the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control that was approved by Cambodia in November 2005,” declared, Mark Schwisow, country director for the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA).

Mr. Schwisow also declared that ADRA and other civil society groups would like to have the law finalized before 2015. “Political will wasn’t so strong in order to send it forward. We want to try to support the acceleration of the enactment of this law. I think that it would be nice to have an engagement from the committee to enact this law by 2011 or 2012,” he declared. He stated that he didn’t know all the reasons for the lag to the enactment of the law, but underlined that the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Commerce had opposed to some points in the draft related to the taxation of tobacco.

Internal tobacco products are taxed at present at 20% and imported products at 25%. According to Mom Komg, the World Bank has proposed to introduce taxes of up to 65 %.

Schwisow declared that there had been some progress in tobacco control reform, with the Health Ministry demonstrating a strong commitment in accelerating the enactment of the law.

A sub-decree making it obligatory for all tobacco products sold in the Kingdom to contain written health warnings went into effect on July 20. Tobacco manufacturers were given nine months in order to submit to the new regulation. “It is possible that the draft will be finalized before the 2015 deadline,” said, Khun Sokrin, director of the NHPC.