The Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), the Ministry of Health and the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union Central Committee organized a meeting in Hanoi on May 25, 2007 to mark the event launching a National Non-Smoking Week in an effort to raise public awareness of the dangers of smoking following a government ban earlier this month on smoking in public places.
The new regulation, which takes effect next month, also bans the sale of cigarettes at workplaces, schools, hospitals, and aboard public transport, and serious crackdown on cigarette smuggling.
In addition, all forms of advertisement, trade promotions, sponsorship by tobacco companies, cigarette sales through vending machines, over telephones and on the Internet will all be banned.
A recent national survey showed that 56 percent of men and close to 1.8 percent of women in Vietnam are regular smokers and the country’s smokers spent close to VND 8.2 trillion (roughly US$513 million) each year on the cigarettes.
