New Chinese Smoking Ban Planned For 2011

Yang Qing, an official from China's Ministry of Health of China, disclosed at a recent press conference that, from January 2011, smoking will be banned entirely from all indoor public places, work places, on public transportation, and other areas on the Chinese mainland.

Yang said that the target was made under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control issued by the World Health Organization.

Yang disclosed that the MoH has set up a leader team headed by the health minister Chen Zhu to implement that the no-smoking campaign and it has asked smoking to be banned completely from all government office buildings. Yang said employees of MoH who voluntarily quit smoking and who do not smoke any cigarettes again for a year will be awarded CNY500 each.

It is said that MoH will also launch a special hotline and email address for making complaints against violators of the smoking ban. In addition before May 31, World No-Tobacco Day, the ministry will invite experts to provide guidance and consultancy services to its employees on how to quit smoking.

In May 2009, several departments including the Ministry of Health and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine jointly issued a document which asked all military medical institutions and at least 50% of other ordinary medical institutions to ban smoking entirely to prepare for the 2011 ban.