China will not allow new cigarette factories, including joint ventures with foreign partners, as part of efforts to reduce smoking in a country that puffs its way through almost 2 trillion cigarettes a year.

Beijing would also impose strict controls on existing tobacco production, including taxes on tobacco leaf and industry reorganisation, Xinhua news agency quoted Sha Zukang, the ambassador to UN agencies in Geneva, as telling a conference.
China is the world’s largest cigarette producer and Chinese are the world’s most enthusiastic smokers, with a growing market of about 320 million making it a magnet for multinationals and focus of international health concern. Chinese cigarettes are also among the cheapest in the world – a packet can cost as little as 8 US cents – and smoking kills 1.2 million people a year in China, according to the World Health Organisation.
In December, Philip Morris, a unit of Altria Group, announced a joint venture to produce Marlboro cigarettes in China. Its partner is state-owned China National Tobacco Corp.
Sha’s promise echoed past comments by Chinese health officials, including some by a spokesman for the country’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration early in 2005, and it was unclear how the Philip Morris deal would be affected. Philip Morris declined comment, apart from re-issuing a statement from last December announcing the China deal.