![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5988160_800.jpg\")
<\/p>\nProposal mulled by Excise Department<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA shopper browses items at a supermarket. A grace period of one year is expected for a potential sodium tax to allow manufacturers sufficient time to adjust product formulations.\u2009Pornprom Satrabhaya\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Food manufacturers will be given a one-year adjustment period to reformulate their products to reduce salt content if a sodium tax is introduced, according to the head of the Excise Department.<\/p>\n
Pornchai Thiraveja, director-general of the department, said the proposal for a sodium tax is being considered by the agency.<\/p>\n
Relevant stakeholders were invited to jointly design the tax measure to ensure the policy is carefully developed, he said.<\/p>\n
A sodium tax is meant to regulate salt levels in snack foods that are popular with Thais, but contain sodium levels above the prescribed standards.<\/p>\n
The measure would address unhealthy consumption among Thais, who consume an average of 3.6 grammes of sodium per day — more than twice the level recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).<\/p>\n
Excessive sodium intake has contributed to a rise in non-communicable diseases, particularly kidney disease and high blood pressure, said Mr Pornchai.<\/p>\n
The Excise Department held consultations with WHO Thailand, the Less Salt Network, the Public Health Ministry and other organisations to analyse and design an appropriate sodium tax framework.<\/p>\n
The department and the Thai Health Promotion Foundation organised “design-based” seminars to gather opinions from the public and private sector stakeholders on the proposed scheme.<\/p>\n
The proposal calls for the tax to be introduced gradually, with appropriate sodium thresholds set for each product category in line with international standards.<\/p>\n
A grace period of around one year would be provided to allow manufacturers sufficient time to adjust and to conduct R&D on healthier product formulations, he said.<\/p>\n
The tax is an important tool to encourage the food industry to modify its production processes and promote lower-salt alternatives at reasonable prices, said Mr Pornchai.<\/p>\n
With the country in a period of political transition, the draft legislation cannot be submitted to the cabinet for approval.<\/p>\n
The Excise Department introduced a sugar tax on beverages in 2017, implementing it in phases to allow producers to gradually reduce sugar content. On April 1, 2025, the sugar tax entered its fourth phase.<\/p>\n
Beverages containing 0-6 g of sugar are exempt from the tax, while those containing 6-8 grammes are taxed 1 baht per litre, with the maximum rate of 5 baht per litre applying to beverages containing 14 grammes of sugar or more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Proposal mulled by Excise Department A shopper browses items at a supermarket. A grace period of one year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[138,219,169266,47421,134,169267,111,139,556,69,1675,169264,72609,169265,4327],"class_list":["post-310780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-excise-department","tag-food-industry","tag-health","tag-health-promotion","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nutrition","tag-nz","tag-public-health","tag-salt-tax","tag-snack-foods","tag-sodium-tax","tag-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}