The ban proposed by the World Health Organization on the use of cloves and other flavours in cigarettes has been opposed by Asian tobacco growers.

"We urge all governments to reject the proposal to ban tobacco ingredients and to investigate other alternatives that can achieve public health goals while also protecting the millions of jobs that are dependent on tobacco growing," ITGA president Roger Quarles said at a tobacco conference in Jakarta.
ITGA and the Indonesian Tobacco Community Alliance (AMTI), representing four million growers across Asia, have formed an Asian lobby group to fight the WHO proposals.
AMTI chairman Soedaryanto said that, as the world's biggest producers of clove cigarettes, Indonesian tobacco growers stood to lose most from a ban.
"Some of these agricultural communities are already among the poorest in the country. No other crop currently exists that can provide similar economic benefits to those communities," he said.
Indonesia is the only country in Asia not to have ratified the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which sets policy recommendations and benchmarks for countries concerned about the health impacts of smoking.
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Indonesia's biggest cigarette manufacturer, PT HM Sampoerna, is an affiliate of Philip Morris International.
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Source-AFP