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Shocked by the fact that nearly half of the country's 1.3 billion population are suffering from passive smoking, a Chinese lawmaker has called for a national legislation to ban smoking at all public places.

"According to my estimation based on a survey, nearly 600 million Chinese suffer from passive smoking, which occurs in 71 percent of Chinese households, 32.5 percent of public places and 25 percent of working places," said Chen Guiyun, a deputy to the 10th National People's Congress (NPC), China's legislature, from the southwestern municipality of Chongqing.

China already has a whopping smoking population of 350 million aged above 15, or one of every three smokers in the world.

"It is imperative to create a no-smoking social environment and enhance the self-protection awareness of non-smokers," said Chen.

According to the legislator, women and children in the country suffer most from secondhand smoking, as the survey showed the passive smoking ratio among the females was 57 percent, and even as high as 70 percent among professional women aged between 20 and 49.

"I have tabled a motion to the upcoming NPC session, suggesting the State Council (the Chinese cabinet) formulate regulations on smoking ban in public places as early as possible," said Chen, who is here for the annual full session of the NPC, slated to open here on Sunday.

When the conditions are ripe, Chen said, the NPC should even enact a law on such a ban.

Many Chinese cities, government departments and organizations have adopted local-level or internal regulations and rules banning smoking in public places. However, so far it seems that such a ban is only strictly observed by airline companies, which have forbidden smoking on any domestic or international flights. Smoking remains rampant and unchecked in other public places such as restaurants, cinemas, offices and railway stations despite conspicuous "no smoking" signs.

According to the standards of the World Health Organization, passive smokers are those non-smoking people who are exposed to smog exhaled by the smokers for more than 15 minutes more than one day of a week.

(Xinhua News Agency March 3, 2006)