Sales of cigarettes in South Korea edged up 1.1 percent in 2022 from a year before, the Finance Ministry said, despite the government’s anti-smoking campaign.

South Korean smokers purchased 3.63 billion packs of 20 cigarettes in 2022, up from the 3.59 billion packs tallied a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

The amount, however, marked a 16.8 percent drop from 2014, a year before the government raised the price of cigarettes by 80 percent in January 2015 from 2,500 won ($2) per pack to 4,500 won in a move to reduce smoking.

Demand for conventional cigarettes dropped 1.8 percent on-year in 2022, while those of heat-not-burn tobacco products soared by 21.3 percent. (Yonhap)