22 August 2025
By Rizki Aulia Ramadhan – Komparatif
Comparatif.ID, Jakarta— The cigarette industry is a perfect example of ‘Serakahnomics’ —a term that was introduced by President Prabowo Subianto at the annual meeting of the People’s Consultative Assembly of the Republic of Indonesia with the House of Representatives and DPD on Friday (8/16/2025).
Prabowo interprets ‘greednomics’ as an economic practice in Indonesia based on greed. He explained that the term is not part of a commonly known economic school, but only a greedy practice to enrich oneself at the expense of the interests of the community.
This was conveyed by the Head of the Center of Human and Development (CHED) of the Institute of Technology and Business (ITB) Ahmad Dahlan Jakarta, Roosita Meilani Dewi, at the press conference to read RAPN 2026 held by the Center of Human and Development (CHED) ITB Ahmad Dahlan on Friday (8/22/2025).
“The cigarette industry is a perfect example of ‘salcomics’. First, they exploit consumers who are already addicted,” explained Rosita.
CHED ITB researcher Ahmad Dahlan said that the cigarette industry also targets vulnerable groups, starting from the young generation and the poor to multiply profits while maintaining business flow.
“They (the cigarette industry) systematically target vulnerable groups such as young people and the poor to perpetuate business,” he continued.
Serakahnomics did not stop there, Rosita called the cigarette industry like a hero by appearing as the largest tax contributor, but with the consequence of transferring all the burden of health and environmental costs to the community.
“They transfer all the burden of health and environmental costs to the community, while they appear like tax contributor heroes,” he said.
Rosita explained that with 70.2 million smokers in Indonesia, including 5.7 million children aged 10-18 years, the cigarette market in the country becomes a paradise for the industry. Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) consistently shows that cigarette spending ranks second in the spending of poor households, beating spending on protein such as eggs and fish.
The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) revealed that the consumption of rice, cigarettes, and coffee sachets became the cause of poverty in Indonesia in March 2025. These three commodities dominate community spending, both in urban and rural areas, and have a big impact on the classification of poverty levels.
In the official BPS report, in the second position, filter kretek cigarettes contribute 10,72 percent to the poverty line in urban areas and 9,99 percent in rural areas.
This condition is not much different from the findings in the September 2024 period, filtered cigarettes also ranked second in that period with a contribution of 10.67 percent in urban and 9.76 percent in rural areas respectively.