China, the world's largest consumer of tobacco and cigarettes, has initiated the implementation of the United Nations' anti-tobacco treaty, known as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Friday.

China has promised that it will no longer set up new tobacco factories and it will ban cigarettes auto-selling machines throughout the country in a declaration, the report said.

The declaration was jointly signed by the State Development and Reform Commission, the ministries of health, foreign affairs and finance, as well as the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, and the State Tobacco Monopoly Bureau in Beijing on Thursday.

The move came in line with the Chinese government's pledge to control smoking it made to the World Health Organization.

On October 11, China handed to the United Nations its ratification of the treaty, which was adopted by the World Health Organization assembly in 2003.

More than 160 countries have become signatories of the treaty. China signed the treaty in early September, which aims at reducing tobacco consumption including through a ban on advertising and promotion.

Tobacco kills 1.2 million people a year in China, which has about 300 million smokers, according to the WHO.

The consumption of tobacco and its related products is reported to claim 4.9 million deaths worldwide annually apart from causing an estimated annual global net loss of US$200 billion in health care cost and lost productivity.
 
(Xinhua News Agency October 15, 2005)