PETALING JAYA: While the sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) tax is in effect in over 100 territories in the world including Malaysia, where diabetes and obesity remain a major disease burden, stakeholders say there is room to expand the coverage of the sugar tax to include more items.
In addition to reducing sugar consumption, the revenue collected from this tax can be channelled back into healthcare, they said.
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This comes as the Health Ministry is considering a National Health Fund, which will consolidate funds pooled from various sources including tax revenue, non-tax revenue and funds from the ministry’s enforcement activities, including from SSB.
The ministry also said in a recent parliamentary written reply that the sugar tax, which was initially imposed on three categories of ready-to-drink drinks, have been extended to premixed drinks from March 1, 2024.Prof Dr Sharifa Ezat Wan Puteh, Professor in Public Health Medicine of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s Faculty of Medicine, said the consumption tax revenue from sugar tax can be used to cross-subsidise healthcare needs and services, especially to tackle the high non-communicable disease (NCD) load in Malaysia. “The tax revenue can be used for the betterment of health facilities, paying healthcare workers and purchasing NCD drugs.”
She said the sugar tax can be expanded to other items such as canned food containing sugar syrups, as well as sweets, chocolates, sports drinks and soft drinks.
Agreeing with Prof Sharifa, Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) president Mohideen Abdul Kader said the sugar tax must be imposed on all sweetened drinks and food with sugar content such as chocolate, biscuits and sweets.
He said although this may result in a price increase for such items, the move is needed to protect and save lives.
Mohideen added that such a step is needed as softer approaches such as talking about the harm caused by consuming excessive sugar has not yielded the desired outcome. He said revenue collected from the sugar tax could be used to treat diabetes and plough into awareness programmes.
“Diabetic patients who are unable to pay for their treatment should be able to apply for funds from the proposed National Health Fund,” he said. Khazanah Research Institute in its paper said sugar tax revenue can be spent on promotive and preventive health-related programmes such as health education and screening.
“This can augment the existing limited funds for health promotion and prevention, and increase public support for such taxes,” it said in a paper titled “Is the Sugar Tax Really Necessary?” released last December.
It also identified gaps in the implementation of the sugar tax.
“Following the introduction of the Healthier Choice Logo (HCL) in 2019, many SSBs have been reformulated to meet HCL sugar requirements. The HCL initiative was implemented by MOH in April 2017.
“The primary objectives of the initiative are to assist consumers in making informed, healthier food choices and encourage food and beverage industries to reformulate and produce healthier products,” it said on the logo used to recognise food and beverages that meet MOH’s nutrition criteria.
To qualify for HCL, sweetened beverages such as flavoured, isotonic and fruit drinks must not contain more than 5g of sugar per 100ml.
The list of SSBs that endorsed the HCL is extensive – around 197 flavoured drinks, 32 fruit and fruit juice drinks, 25 botanical beverages and 10 isotonic electrolyte drinks are listed as of December 2023.
“This means many SSBs with sugar content below the taxable thresholds remain untaxed,” it said.
In 2019, the government introduced a tax on sugary drinks, imposing a 40 sen levy per litre for beverages containing more than 5g of sugar per 100ml and fruit juices with 12g of sugar per 100ml.
The revenue collected from the sugar tax was originally intended to fund the free and healthy breakfast programme for all primary school children, mooted by the then Pakatan Harapan government.
According to the World Bank’s Global SSB Tax Database, 106 countries have implemented some form of national SSB tax, which covers 52% of the world’s population.Mexico, which was touted as one of the most successful models for sugar tax implementation, raised over US$2.6bil (RM12.2bil) in the first two years of its rollout. Some of this revenue was invested in installing water fountains in schools across Mexico.
In Seattle, the United States, revenue from their sugar tax was used to fund programmes and services that increased access to healthy food, supported health and learning in early childhood and uplifted other vulnerable communities impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
