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TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015
Window on the World
C
hina, a vast land, over 3.6 million square
miles, a population of over 1.4 billion or
roughly five times that of theUnited States.
A world market consuming more steel than the
U.S., Europe and Japan combined, home to more
than 1,000 electronic cigarette manufacturers
and marketers located predominately in the Pearl
River Delta within China’s youngest, and perhaps
most vibrant, city. In 1980, Shenzhen was a rural
Southeast China farming area located just 20
miles from Hong Kong. It was chosen by Deng
Xiaoping as an incubator in which the seeds of
China’s economic reform were to be nurtured.
Just 35 years later Shenzhen resounds as a
bustling commercial powerhouse with 10 million
residents—a “window on the world” of electronic
vapor and cigarette production.
Tobacco Business International/Vapor Consortium
International
visited China in October of 2014
with the purpose of gleaning insight and a better
understanding of the electronic product along
with the issues and opportunities governing
mutual American/Chinese industry relationships.
Today, virtually all vapor and electronic cigarette
products are produced in China. Surprisingly,
more than 70 percent of that product is shipped
overseas, the U.S. being the dominant market for
those goods.Culturally and habitually, the Chinese
market is heavily oriented toward cigarettes. The
health and harm-reduction component of the
East meets West in a tour of China’s vapor industry.
By Edward O’Connor