Tobacco leaf farmers oppose foreign tobacco brands in military

Tobacco leaf farmers in Korea are railing against the introduction of foreign cigarette brands into stores on military bases, raising concerns that their entry would curb the sales of Korean-grown tobacco leaves.

Last month, the Defense Ministry announced that two foreign cigarette brands would be sold on military bases here for the first time, breaking KT&G’s monopoly in the military market. The chosen brands were Marlboro Gold Original and Mevius LSS Wind Blue.

The growers’ concern is that growing demand for foreign cigarettes in the military will shrink sales of KT&G’s cigarettes, and in turn decrease the need for domestically grown cigarette leaves.

The Korea Tobacco Growers Organization sells all of its leaves only to Korean manufacturer KT&G, whereas the big foreign players -- Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International -- use only imported leaves.

“Growing tobacco leaves in Korea can cost double the price of importing them because of high labor costs here,” said a spokesperson from KT&G. “So the foreign brands don’t buy them. We buy all the Korean-grown leaves at the moment, but we would welcome foreign companies buying Korean-grown leaves as well, for the welfare of the farmers.”

In response to criticism about foreign companies’ relatively small contributions to the Korean economy, PMI agreed to start buying Korean tobacco leaves starting next year, however, BAT and JTI have no plans to do so yet.

By Won Ho-jung (hjwon@heraldcorp.com)