Sudan-Country Profile
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Sudan-Country Profile, Tobacco Tactics, updated 13 August 2021, accessed 11 April 2024.
The Sudan, officially known as the Republic of Sudan, is a country in northeast Africa. It is Africa’s third-largest country at more than 1.8m square kilometres, and also the third-largest in the Arab world. It was the largest country in both categories before the secession of South Sudan in 2011.
Background
In 2020, Sudan had a population of 43 million people.1 The life expectancy for Sudanese men that year was 65.3 years and for women, 67.2 years.2 Sudan is classified by the World Bank as a low-income country.3
Tobacco Use in Sudan
In 2016, 15.6% of Sudanese adults were tobacco users. Tobacco use in Sudan is significantly higher for men (27.9%) than women (0.8%). Youth tobacco use (ages 13-15 years old) is 11.7% overall. This also reflects a gender divide, with 14.5% of boys versus 7.3% of girls using tobacco.4
Product use is fairly evenly divided between smoked (9.6%) and smokeless (7.9%) tobacco in adults. Youth tobacco use leans more heavily towards smoked (8.3%) than smokeless (4.9%) products.4
Tobacco in Sudan
The Sudanese cigarette market was estimated to have sold 5,146.1 million sticks and be worth US$355.7 million in 2020 by Euromonitor International. The smoking pipe tobacco market was worth US$92.4 million in 2019.5
British American Tobacco (BAT) and Japan Tobacco International (JTI) both operate in the country. BAT operates through the Blue Nile Cigarette Company which it acquired in 2016.6 JTI operates through the Haggar Cigarette and Tobacco Factory (HCTF) which it acquired in 2011.78 Euromonitor does not have market share data available for Sudan.
Roadmap to Tobacco Control
Sudan signed the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in June 2004 and ratified it in October 2005.
As of 2021, Sudan has implemented bans on all forms of direct advertising of tobacco products across all forms of media (TV, radio, internet, print media), as well as promotional discounts and free distribution. It also mandates health warning covering 30% of the front of all tobacco products and implements a 73.4% ad-valorem tax on cigarettes. 9
In April 2021, Sudan was joined by 14 other countries from the Eastern Mediterranean Region in banning the use of waterpipes in all indoor and outdoor public places 9 Apart from this ban, Sudan does not, have any other smoke free places legislation. It also does not ban tobacco product display at point-of-sale or corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.4 Though nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and some cessation services are offered, neither are cost-covered by the government.10
Up to date information on tobacco control legislation around the world can be found on the Tobacco Control Laws website (published by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids). You can search litigation by country, tobacco control measure, or type of legal action. The website also contains analysis and assessment of FCTC compliance, and policy factsheets. Parties to the WHO FCTC submit regular FCTC COP reports detailing their progress in implementing the treaty, which are presented in the FCTC Implementation database. Further information on countries’ progress in implementing the WHO recommended MPOWER measures can be found in the WHO reports on the global tobacco epidemic, a serious of biennial reports detailing status and compliance.
Tobacco Industry Interference
In 2011, JTI announced that it had acquired Haggar Cigarette & Tobacco Factory Ltd (HCTF) in both Sudan and South Sudan.11 In June 2020, Alarabiya-AlSudan news agency reported that Anis George Haggar, Chairman and majority shareholder of the Haggar Group,12 was selected as a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Sudan. 13[ In September 2020, the Bank added tobacco products to its list of “essential” products during the COVID-19 pandemic. After criticism from tobacco control advocates, the Bank apologised and withdrew its decision.1415
Sudan ranked 19th out of 57 countries in the 2020 Global Tobacco Interference Index (GTIII). The GTIII is produced by the Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control (GGTC), a partner in STOP, which is funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The GTIII found that industry participates in creating the legislative standards for tobacco and benefits directly from a National Investment Law. It found that the government does not prohibit contributions from the industry to political parties or monitor its meetings with tobacco industry representatives. The industry has also used CSR activities to encourage partnership with government, including a ‘back to school’ programme and university construction costs, the opening of which was officiated by the President and the Minister of Industry.16
According to an investigation conducted by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in February 2021, billions of cigarettes produced by British American Tobacco are smuggled every year through Mali to the northern region of Africa, reaching Sudan.17 The report alleged that: “Illicit cigarettes from the capital, Bamako, and ports in Guinea, Benin, and Togo are loaded into convoys with armed guards and driven north along thousands of kilometres of winding roads and desert tracks to Libya and Algeria, and as far east as Sudan.”17BAT has denied any wrongdoing.
Extensive research published in 2021 by the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath, a partner in STOP, and in conjunction with BBC’s Panorama, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project uncovered multiple instances of British American Tobacco seeking to frustrate tobacco control measures in Africa.
- For more details visit The BAT Files on Tobacco Tactics
Relevant Links
Haggar Cigarette and Tobacco Factory Ltd. (JTI)
TobaccoTactics Resources
- British American Tobacco
- Japan Tobacco International
- Africa’s Tobacco Epidemic
- A list of TobaccoTactics pages on Africa
