Shanghai, March 22:

China will tax disposable wooden chopsticks and luxury items such as yachts, the government says, citing a need to protect the environment and redress the gap between rich and poor.

The finance ministry annou-nced the change in policy, which takes effect April 1, the Xinhua News Agency reported. Buyers of yachts, golf balls and golf clu-bs will face a 10 per cent tax, whi-le luxury watches will be taxed at a rate of 20 per cent, it reported.

The change reflects the communist leadership’s goals of countering the widening gap between rich and poor and of protecting the environment, which has been ravaged by more than two decades of industrialisation. The current tax on skin care and hair care products such as shampoo will end on April 1, the report stated. That tax was imposed in 1994, when such products were still considered luxuries. Thanks to China’s rising level of affluence, they are now viewed as daily necessities.

The five per cent taxes on disposable wooden chopsticks and on wooden floor panels are intended to discourage consumption of items that are blamed for wasting scarce timber resources, the ministry said. China makes about 15 billion pairs of throwaway chopsticks a year, consuming some 2 million cubic metres of wood. To discourage waste of petroleum products, the government will levy taxes on naphtha, solvents, lubricants and aviation fuel, the ministry said.