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Shanghai Expo hands back tobacco sponsorship
by Benjamin Li
22-Jul-09, 12:28
SHANGHAI - The Shanghai World Expo 2010 is believed to have returned Rmb 200 million (US$29 million) of sponsorship funds from Shanghai Tobacco Group for the China national pavilion.
The event wants to promote itself as a healthy World Expo in what analysts believe is a growing anti-smoking trend in China’s top-tier markets.
Shanghai Tobacco Group made the donation in May. It was the largest single contribution the China pavilion had received since fund-raising began in 2007. The company is no longer listed among the fair’s 13 global partners on the Expo website.
Stephen Morgan, regional director Asia-Pacific Healthcare at Weber Shandwick Worldwide, said the decision reflects changing attitudes toward cigarettes. “I think there has been a watershed in terms of perception and acceptability of smoking in mainland China. We have already seen some legislation to curtail smoking. There is a long way to go, but this is a good first step.”
The Southern Metropolis News quoted an anonymous source from the Expo Bureau that the decision had been reached in a document ruling out gifts from firms linked to the tobacco industry.
Jiang Yuan, a tobacco control official at the Ministry of Health, was quoted in the South China Morning Post saying: “The Shanghai government has the chance to set a positive example to the rest of the country. This is not just about the Shanghai World Expo, there are many other public events that have received money from tobacco companies. I am certain the Shanghai Government’s decision will have an impact.”
However, one China PR source suggested the U-turn could reflect the sort of divisions between local and international organisations that occurred in the run-up to the Olympics in Beijing.
“BOCOG [Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games] had lots of arguments with the International Olympic Committee [IOC] as Beijing had its own ideas about appropriate sponsorship, most of which the IOC disagreed with. I expect that state-owned Shanghai Tobacco did a neat deal with the state-owned Expo committee, and the Bureau International des Expositions either just found out, and freaked out, or found out earlier and was successful just now in convincing the committee that it was a dumb idea, given the good and healthy brand equity of the Expos.”
China is the world’s largest tobacco market with about 350 million smokers, accounting for one-third of the world’s smokers.
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