CRI听力:Cigarette Output Soars despite Tobacco Control

The report released by the Think-tank Research Center for Health Development is titled "Tobacco Control in China from a Civil Society Perspective 2013."

Wang Ke'an, director of the center, says China still faces a lot of challenges in its anti-smoking cause.

"In 2002, the total cigarette production was 1.7 trillion annually. But in 2012, the number has jumped to 2.52 trillion. That is a 50 percent increase in the past decade."

According to data from the National Health and Family Planning Commission, China has a total of 300 million smokers.

Meanwhile some 740 million others are regularly exposed to hazardous secondhand smoke.

Wang Ke'an, director of the Think-tank Research Center for Health Development.

"The latest statistics show about 1.4 million people die from smoking-related causes every year, that is to say about 38-hundred people every day. Based on our conservative estimation, until 2025, the number will reach 2 million and 3 million in 2050."

The latest finding echoed a similar new assessment by the World Health Organization, or WHO.

The assessment finds China is rated low among more than 100 other countries that have joined the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control over the past five years.

The assessment awarded China two of a possible 16 points on public smoking control, and zero points on tobacco advertising control.

This means China's years of anti-smoking efforts have had almost no results.

Moreover, the assessment notes the country's tobacco tax rate, now standing at 43 percent, is still too low as compared to the world average.

The Chinese government signed the Convention on Tobacco Control in 2003, vowing to reduce the country's tobacco use from then on.

In May 2011, China regulated that smoking should be banned from all public indoor areas.

However poor enforcement of the regulation has been blamed by many.

At the same time, some local governments have taken their own anti-smoking measures.

Zhang Jingdong is an official from disease control center in the northeast city of Harbin.

"The city government has setup a special department dedicated to the anti-smoking cause. We are also setting up a hotline for public report and supervision."

Some experts are suggesting a nationwide law is needed to strengthen the country's anti-smoking effort.

For CRI, this is Alexander Auccot.