The Cook Islands government is to increase the tax on tobacco in the next budget.
The finance minister Mark Brown says the government will be increasing import levies on cigarettes and tobacco by 33 percent annually over the next three years.
He says the aim is to reduce tobacco and cigarette consumption to increase long-term savings for the health ministry.
Mr Brown says from a finance perspective cigarette smoking is a huge contributor to non-communicable diseases, which are responsible for 84 percent of deaths in the Cook Islands.
He says cigarette smoke is a huge cost to the health ministry in terms of its budget for smoking-related illnesses.
Revenue generated by the levy increase will be channelled into a fund earmarked for programmes to stop smoking.
