Country Overview
Key Facts
Number of Employees: Approximately 430
Main Brands:
Marlboro, Parliament, Virginia Slims, Lark
Welcome to Philip Morris Korea. We are proud to have offered quality tobacco products to Korean adult smokers since our establishment in 1989.
We have a diverse portfolio, including brands such as Marlboro, Parliament, Virginia Slims, and Lark. Our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility is located in Yangsan in the South Gyeongsang Province. We inaugurated our factory in 2001 and today more than 200 people work there. The Yangsan facility was the first tobacco manufacturing facility built by a multinational tobacco company in Korea.
We are also engaged in diverse contributions throughout Korea, including funding shelters for victims of domestic violence and contributing to a number of cultural and artistic programs. Our commitment to corporate social responsibility has been widely recognized by society and the government. We have received honorable citations from the Ministry of Health three times since we began our operations in Korea.
Smoking and Health
Tobacco products, including cigarettes, are dangerous and addictive. There is overwhelming medical and scientific evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and other serious diseases.
Addiction
All tobacco products are addictive. It can be very difficult to quit smoking, but this should not deter smokers who want to quit from trying to do so.
Secondhand Smoke
Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes serious diseases in non-smokers, including lung cancer and heart disease. We believe the public health conclusions on secondhand smoke are sufficient to support smoking restrictions in public places.
Effective Regulation
Philip Morris International (PMI) supports comprehensive regulation of tobacco products based on the principle of harm reduction.
To be effective, tobacco regulatory policy must be evidence-based, apply to all tobacco products, and should take into account the views of all legitimate stakeholders including public health authorities, government finance authorities, tobacco manufacturers, and other members of the tobacco supply chain. Regulatory policy must consider the potential to trigger adverse consequences which undermine public health objectives, such as increasing the demand for illicit cigarettes. While we support comprehensive, effective tobacco regulation, we do not support regulation that prevents adults from buying and using tobacco products or that imposes unnecessary impediments to the operation of the legitimate tobacco market. In that regard, we oppose measures such as plain packaging, point of sale display bans, total bans on communications to adult consumers, and bans on the use of all ingredients in tobacco products.