KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 7 — Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said taxing the vape industry will be hard if the new Tobacco Regulation Act is not tabled and implemented.

He said currently, the Ministry of Health (MOH) is looking at the issue as the vape liquid that contains nicotine is under the purview of the Poison Act 1952.

"MOH needs to implement further details before implementing either overlap or contrary to the Poison Act 1952.

"A new act on tobacco control needs to be completed immediately and tabled. This Act is currently under review by the Attorney General’s Chambers

"Without this act, electronic cigarette liquids other than those containing nicotine are difficult to control. The introduction of taxes is difficult to implement.

"Now our control is over nicotine, (but) how we should control the taxation needs to be refined,” he told a press conference today.

Yesterday, the government announced that it will be freezing the issuance of import licences for cigarettes and imposing an excise duty on electronic, non-electronic cigarette devices and vape liquids beginning January 2021.

In his Budget 2021 speech, Finance Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz also said the government will tighten the license renewal for importing cigarettes by revising the license terms including introducing an import quota.