Buyers beware

Based on President Trump’s budget proposal released last week, his administration plans to impose a user fee for e-cigarettes to beef up the US Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory oversight over tobacco and nicotine products and its campaign to reduce use by minors.

This as the US FDA prepares to ban “sweet” or “confectionary” flavors for e-cigarettes that is making vaping very attractive to teenagers in America. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention says an alarming 3 million American teens were found to be using e-cigarettes in 2018, or one in every five students.

Health advocates in the US attribute the rise in e-cigarette use to the so-called “Juul phenomenon.” Juul is the extremely popular e-cigarette products that has captured the imagination of the e-cigarette market in the US. From a small start-up company set up by two Stanford grad students a few years ago, Juul ended 2018 with a staggering 75 percent share of the e-cig market in the US with a net worth of $16 billion.

The success of Juul is no big secret. From its sleek USB-like devices, flavors that include strawberry, grapes, mangoes and even crème brulee, to the high nicotine contents of its pods, Juul makers have discovered the formula for growth.

According to the product’s website, the nicotine cartridge inserted into the Juul gives about 200 puffs, almost the same amount of nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. In the US, Juul’s nicotine content may vary from 40 to 60 mg/ml. A regular cigarette contains 4 to 12 mg of nicotine only.

In the European Union, where they regulate novel tobacco products, the nicotine ceiling is 20 mg.

A number of parents have complained and school administrators have begun cracking down on Juul use on campus. This has reached the attention of the US FDA, thus the renewed and stricter attempt to regulate e-cigs beginning with the ban on flavored pods.

Unfortunately, makers of Juul are setting their sights on the international market. There are reports that Juul has already signed a joint venture agreement with a Philippine conglomerate, with commercial launch set between April to June this year.

But this early, Juul devices and pods are already being sold here. Since the company has not secured a certificate of product registration from our FDA, an importer notification for new products from the Bureau of Customs, authority to release imported goods on tobacco products from the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and other regulatory approvals, then the products being sold are illegal and could pose serious danger to the public, given concerns raised in the US.

There is little doubt that vaping is a lot safer than smoking. But Juul is definitely not safer.

China and the world

President Duterte was one of the earliest and most avid fan of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) ever since he made the May 2017 journey to Beijing, China’s first Belt and Road Forum.

There, he joined world leaders like Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and was one of the few global leaders to give two speeches at the forum’s leaders’ roundtable summits where 29 heads of state attended and participated.

The BRI aims to strengthen infrastructure, trade, and investment links between China and 65 other countries.

At that first BRI forum, Chinese President Xi said the group had crafted a „road map“ for the BRI and identified infrastructure and reduction of trade barriers as priority areas for its projects.

The second forum on the Belt and Road cooperation will be held in Beijing in April, with more comprehensive cooperation and more foreign heads of states and governments attending, according to State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. President Duterte is among the first to be invited.

Many countries are jumping on the bandwagon, as they recognize the growing importance of China in the global economy.

Despite US national security adviser spokesman Garrett Marquis’s statement that there is need for the Italian government to lend legitimacy to China’s infrastructure vanity project, Italy has signed up for this year’s summit and Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has said that the initiative would benefit his country’s economy as it struggles to recover from yet another recession.

Michele Geraci, Italy’s undersecretary in the economic development ministry, has said that Rome plans to sign an MOU to support the BRI infrastructure drive when Chinese President Xi Jinping visits at the end of March, adding that China would have the largest impact on Italian growth over the next decade by calming market fears over Italian debt and cover a fall in foreign investment, by helping stem the flow of illegal migration from Africa, and by supporting security issues in Italy.

A number of European Union states have likewise signed belt and road MOUs with China, including Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Malta, Poland and Portugal. When Italy signs, it would be the first Group of Seven major industrialized nations to do so.

Forbes.com has quoted the International Monetary Fund as saying that the BRI could fill large and long-standing infrastructure gaps in China’s partner countries, boosting their growth prospects, strengthening supply chains and trade, and increasing employment.

Late last year, the Philippines and China agreed to cooperate on infrastructure for the next 10 years to boost economic development and improve investment environment. Key areas of cooperation are transportation, agriculture, irrigation, fish ports, power, ICT and telecommunications, among others. Both countries have signed an MOU on cooperation on the BRI.

An article in chinadaily.com noted that China is already the Philippines’ biggest trade partner under the BRI and with $1 trillion worth of investments expected under the whole BRI, the Philippines will gain greater access to cross-border capital to sustain its growth.

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