China to ban tobacco promotion by 2011

China will ban all forms of tobacco advertising by January 2011, Xu Guihua, vice president of the China Tobacco Control Association, announced at a seminar on tobacco control in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, Economic Observer reported (in Chinese). The country lags behind other countries in efforts to control the use of tobacco; the biggest problem is the lack of national regulations banning smoking in public areas, said Xu. The ban is in line with commitments under the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, of which China became a formal member in early 2006.