Low cigarette prices

Long, a man suffering from lung cancer after smoking for more than 50 years said the cigarette he usually smokes costs less than 10 yuan a pack and he needs more than one pack everyday.

The low price is definitely a huge temptation for Chinese smokers considering the fact that a pack of cigarette costs about 60 yuan to 70 yuan in Hong Kong and New York.

Yang Gonghuan said China imposed a 5 percent tax on the tobacco wholesale process and raised its tobacco tax in 2009, which didn't cause a decline in the country's tobacco consumption, but made the sales of some kinds of tobacco to keep a growing trend.

"The tobacco tax was seemingly raised, but the sum of cigarettes that have price hikes is quite limited," Yang said, adding only by raising tobacco's retail prices can the country enforce tobacco control by a pricing mechanism.

Beijing's move

Beijing Municipal Bureau of Health said on Dec 24, 2010 that tobacco control is in its 12th year plan and the city's public indoor spaces, public working place and public transportation vehicles will be totally smoke-free by 2015, which means the goal is postponed by five years from the original 2010.

But when a law will be issued is still unknown, because "it involves the communication and coordination of many government departments."

According to official data released in 2009, 70 percent of Beijing's public spaces have banned smoking, 1,020 restaurants, 218 hospitals and 66,000 taxis are smoke-free after a new regulation was enforced in 2008.

But the rule seems to have become loose recently, with smoking and smoke-free areas not being separated in some restaurants and smoking still found in smoke-free areas.