China will ban all advertising of tobacco, including promotions and sponsorships, by January 2011, according to Xu Guihua, Deputy Leader and Secretary-General of Chinese Association on Tobacco Control. The announcement was made in a public report on China's implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control of the World Health Organization in Guangzhou.
The deadline was confirmed by Jiang Yuan, Deputy Head of the State
Tobacco Control Office, who said the timing should coincide with
China's commitment as a signatory to the Framework, state news agency
Xinhua reports. China signed the Framework Convention in March 2003,
and the convention came into effect from 9 January 2006.
The move will rock China's booming tobacco industry - China is the
world's largest tobacco producing and consuming country, accounting
for more than one third of the global total on both counts - and cut
government tax revenues. China has more than 350 million smokers and
almost one million die from smoking-related diseases each year,
according to the Ministry of Health. About 540 million Chinese suffer
the effects of second-hand smoke and more than 100,000 die annually
from diseases caused by passive smoking, said the Ministry's 2007
Report on China's Smoking Control.
News & Interviews 
(0 vote)
