“We don’t think that taxes on new foods will immediately result in the most positive consequences”, Minister Macedo told journalists on the sidelines of a meeting in Lisbon about extending the National Health Plan 2020.
During the meeting Zsuzsanna Jakab, regional director for Europe for the World Health Organisation (WHO), said she believes preventing diseases is essential for coming years, particularly within the food sector, which is one of the sectors that most contributes towards loss of life in Portugal.
When asked by journalists about the introduction of taxes on foods and drinks that could be considered harmful, Minister Paulo Macedo recalled that essential foods have a lower value added tax (IVA), while the likes of sugary drinks have a higher IVA, and says this is already a way of differentiating between them.
“We understand that, regardless of the taxes, particularly regarding products that contain too much salt, what is important is to put in place better information for the consumer.
“A work group is planned to liaise between the Ministries of Economy, Agriculture and Health, which I hope will start operating already this month, in order to take new steps in reducing salt contents”, he added.
Insisting that it is “not enough to go down the tax route”, because “taxes aren’t always the most efficient or ideal” solution, Macedo proposed other measures such as the “monitoring of consumption” and increasing consumer information.
Touching upon the matter of harmful food products, he stressed that the government has already additionally taxed tobacco and alcohol “in a balanced manner.”
At the end of the meeting the regional director for the WHO reiterated that Portugal needs to “make an effort in the areas of smoking, obesity, child obesity and all the problems associated to food and nutrition, like the excessive consumption of salt, sugar and fat, as well as in promoting physical exercise.”
Fighting child obesity is, in fact, one of the main objectives outlined by the National Health Plan 2020, along with reducing smoking, increasing healthy life expectancy and seeing a drop of the death rate in under-70s (premature mortality).
“You are making good progress with regard to life expectancy and reducing premature mortality. However, as with the rest of the world, non-communicable chronic diseases are a big challenge, a big problem, so you need to continue the work in this area”, Zsuzsanna Jakab said.
However, she warned that health-related behaviours cannot be dissociated from life circumstances and living conditions: “It is necessary to work closer with the sectors of social policies, employment and education, in order to make good progress in these areas.”
Zsuzsanna Jakab believes Portuguese policies in health are “an example” for other European countries to follow, and stressed that Portugal “is on the right track.”