What’s new: Ling Chengxing, the former head of China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) is being investigated for “serious violations of discipline and law” by the country’s top anti-graft agencies, authorities said Monday.
Ling, director of the STMA from 2013 to 2018, is the latest and highest-ranking tobacco industry official caught up in the country’s sweeping corruption crackdown which has been underway for nearly two years.
The background: Ling, a native of Jiangxi born in October 1957, entered the tobacco monopoly system at the age of 35, starting in his home province, where he later served as executive vice governor. In 2013, he was named the director of STMA and the general manager of China National Tobacco Corp. (CNTC).
The CNTC and the STMA together forms China Tobacco, which controls more than 95% of cigarette sales in the country. China has the world’s largest cigarette market with more than 300 million smokers, which is about one third of the world’s total.
As of May, nearly 20 senior executives and officials from the government-controlled CNTC and STMA have been caught up in the anti-graft sweep, which kicked off in late 2021. Although Ling is the fifth chief of the STMA, he is the first to be investigated in nearly four decades since the cigarette industry regulator was established in 1984.
Earlier in October, former chairman of China Tobacco Yunnan Industrial Co. Ltd., Ye Libin, was formally accused of accepting bribes and of illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.
Contact reporter Kelly Wang (jingzhewang@caixin.com)
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