TOBACCO PRODUCTION IN ASIA: IMPACT OF WHO-FCTC

Abstract

Asia is the largest producer of tobacco in the world accounting for about 63 percent of production and about 61 percent of area and embraces 24 percent of tobacco exports in the world. The present paper is an attempt to assess the performance of tobacco production and exports in Asia and impact of supply side measures of Framework Convention on Tobacco Control implementation (FCTC) in Asia. The study was primarily based on the time-series secondary data on area, production, and productivity and exports of tobacco from Asia. The growth dynamics of tobacco production and exports in Asia have been analysed during the past two decades. The results have depicted that the supply side measures of FCTC has not made discernible impact on reduction of tobacco production and exports in Asia, especially in mega countries like China and India during post-FCTC period. However, the future prospects of tobacco production is emerging in hitherto small producing countries of Asia like Pakistan and Bangladesh as their productivity is higher than the global average. Concluding remarks suggest that framing a region specific policy to address the issues related to stable production of food and non-food commodities, climate change impact, natural resource degradation and public health in conjunction with international policy environment for a sustainable and balanced development of agriculture sector in Asia.