Policy Address 2026: Hong Kong to standardise cigarette pack designs in bid to discourage smoking

Hong Kong will standardise designs on all cigarette packs starting from the end of next year in a bid to discourage residents from smoking, the city’s leader John Lee has announced.

Lee made the announcement during his annual Policy Address on Wednesday, after the government gazetted subsidiary legislation last week that will strip cigarette packs of their designs and replace them with plain packaging.

In a press release last Friday, the government said the measure was recommended by the World Health Organization.

“Plain packaging will remove brand logos, various colours and the decorative elements including slogans and signs on the packaging, fundamentally undermining the brand effect,” the press release stated.

It added that plain packaging would direct consumers’ attention to the health warnings printed on the cigarette packs.

The government will begin rolling out the standardised packaging from March next year, with a nine-month transition period before the measure is fully enforced on December 1, 2027.

The buffer window is meant to allow retailers time to clear existing stock, authorities said.

Hong Kong has implemented a raft of policies in recent years to deter smoking, including raising taxes on cigarettes and cracking down on alternative smoking products.

The smoking rate has declined from 23.3 per cent of residents aged 15 or above in the early 1980s to 8.5 per cent last year, according to the Department of Health.

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Hillary Leung is a journalist at Hong Kong Free Press, where she reports on local politics and social issues, and assists with editing. Since joining in late 2021, she has covered the Covid-19 pandemic, political court cases including the 47 democrats national security trial, and challenges faced by minority communities.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Hillary completed her undergraduate degree in journalism and sociology at the University of Hong Kong. She worked at TIME Magazine in 2019, where she wrote about Asia and overnight US news before turning her focus to the protests that began that summer. At Coconuts Hong Kong, she covered general news and wrote features, including about a Black Lives Matter march that drew controversy amid the local pro-democracy movement and two sisters who were born to a domestic worker and lived undocumented for 30 years in Hong Kong.