Online Training on ‘Economics of Tobacco and Tobacco Taxation: Public Health Perspective’
A 3-day online training session was held for the 10th cohort on ‘Economics of Tobacco and Tobacco Taxation: Public Health Perspective’ from 31st December 2022 to 2nd January 2023 on the online meeting platform ‘Zoom’. The training program was jointly organized by BER and BNTTP with technical and financial assistance from Bloomberg Philanthropies and The Union.
The opening session was inaugurated by Dr. Rumana Huque, Professor of Economics at the University of Dhaka, and Focal person of the Bureau of Economic Research (BER). She talked about the main objective of this online training and the importance of taxation in the field of tobacco control and hoped that the participants will have a great learning opportunity through this training.
On the first day of the training, Nazmul Hossain, Associate Professor of Economics and Dr. Rumana Huque, Professor of Economics, University of Dhaka, conducted two sessions respectively on Tobacco tax: Theory and basic concepts. As a resource person of 1st session of 2nd day, Hamidul Islam Hillol, Project Manager, BER conducted the session on National Tobacco Tax Policy Outline.’ The 2nd session of the day on ‘Economics of tobacco: Harmful effects of Tobacco’ was conducted by Prof. Dr. Golam Mohiuddin, Project director of Bangladesh Cancer Society. On the 3rd and last day of the training, the 1st session on Tobacco tax: Country Experiences” Economics of tobacco: Industry Interference was steered by Dr. Nasiruddin Ahmed, Ex-Chairman, NBR and the 2nd session was conducted by Sushanta Sinha, Special Correspondent, Ekattor TV. The topic of his session was CSR activities and the unethical interference of the tobacco industry.
Advocate Syed Mahbubul Alam, Technical Advisor of The Union, presented his remarks at the closing ceremony of the online training. He hoped that the participants would utilize the learning and knowledge gathered from this training session later on in their workplace as well as in the fight against the harmful use of tobacco.
A total of 20 participants participated and successfully completed the training. The training, funded by the international development organization, The Union, was attended by journalists, development workers, tobacco control workers, and university students. They also pledged to work together to increase taxes on tobacco and tobacco products to improve public health.