

China is the world's largest consumer and producer of tobacco, and the industry provides the government with colossal sums.

In 2015, it recorded $160 billion in profits, up 20 per cent year-on-year.


The paper -- called "The Bill China Cannot Afford" -- estimated that the total annual economic cost of tobacco use in the country in 2014 was 350 billion yuan, up tenfold from 2000.

"If nothing is done to reduce [the death rate] and introduce more progressive policies, the consequences could be devastating not just for the health of people across the country, but also for China's economy as a whole," WHO China representative Bernhard Schwartlander said in a statement.


"The rapid increase in costs associated with tobacco use in China is unsustainable," Schwartlander added.

Twenty-eight per cent of all adults and 50 per cent of men in China are estimated to smoke regularly.

Rural-to-urban migrants are more likely to be smokers, the report said, adding that they risk descending into poverty when smoking-related medical costs become too great -- a reality at odds with the government goal of eradicating poverty nationwide by 2020.




A 50 per cent increase in the retail price of cigarettes would prevent 20 million premature deaths over 50 years, the report said.