China, the world's largest consumer of tobacco and cigarettes,
has initiated the implementation of the United Nations'
anti-tobacco treaty, known as the Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Friday.
China has promised that it will no longer set up new tobacco
factories and it will ban cigarettes auto-selling machines
throughout the country in a declaration, the report said.
The declaration was jointly signed by the State Development and
Reform Commission, the ministries of health, foreign affairs and
finance, as well as the State Administration for Industry and
Commerce, and the State Tobacco Monopoly Bureau in Beijing on
Thursday.
The move came in line with the Chinese government's pledge to
control smoking it made to the World Health Organization.
On October 11, China handed to the United Nations its
ratification of the treaty, which was adopted by the World Health
Organization assembly in 2003.
More than 160 countries have become signatories of the treaty.
China signed the treaty in early September, which aims at reducing
tobacco consumption including through a ban on advertising and
promotion.
Tobacco kills 1.2 million people a year in China, which has
about 300 million smokers, according to the WHO.
The consumption of tobacco and its related products is reported
to claim 4.9 million deaths worldwide annually apart from causing
an estimated annual global net loss of US$200 billion in health
care cost and lost productivity.
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(Xinhua News Agency October 15, 2005)