BEIJING, April 12 (TMTPOST)— The American depositary receipts (ADRs) of RLX Technology Inc settled about 1.6% higher after soaring as much as 14% in the morning trading Tuesday, when three major U.S. stock indexes eased their gains in mid-day session and fell around 0.3% at close. The stock of China’s largest e-cigarette company outperformed other U.S.-listed Chinese firms as the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index, which tracks China-exposed firms listed in the United States such as Alibaba, Baidu, Bilibili, shed nearly 1.3% that day.
Source: Visual China
RLX stock’s performance came as Chinese government released the Mandatory National Standard for E-Cigarettes (“National Standard”), ending more-than-a-decade-long Wild West days when vaping products sold in the world’s largest tobacco market were made without the unified manufacturing standards at the national level. The National Standard, approved by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), China’s top market regulator, and the Standardization Administration of China (SAC), an organization in charge of the management, supervision and coordination of standardization work that authorized by the State Council, will come into effect on October 1. Just like the updated draft unveiled last month specified, the National Standard makes it clear that e-cigarette aerosol shall not be deliberately tempting to minors, and prohibits selling flavored e-cigarettes other than tobacco flavors, effectively banning any other mainstream flavorings in the market, such as various fruits, lactobacillus and peppermint. It requires any e-cigarette aerosol shall contain no more than 20mg/g of nicotine, or the maximum amount of nicotine content was 200 mg. It asks the market participants to sell products through authorized companies and add product features to protect children from activating and smoking e-cigarettes.
Last month, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) introduced the Management Rule for E-Cigarettes. The comprehensive regulation bans any kind of promotion of vaping products in China, such as forums, expositions, exhibitions. Under the new rule, companies shall apply for a license for production, retail and wholesale of any vaping products, which is similar with the existing license for tobacco manufacturers’ patent sales of tobacco products. And the proposal for initial public offering (IPO) or listing shall be reviewed and approved by administrative authorities of the tobacco patent sales under the State Council. It underscores authorities shall prohibit students in the primary school and the middle school from vaping and improve education about health risks of e-cigarettes.
