Plan to raise tobacco sales criticised

BEIJING: China’s national tobacco regulator’s plan to increase sales has been criticised as going against the trend of tobacco control.

The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA), the national regulatory body of the tobacco industry, and China National Tobacco Corp, a company it runs, set a target of 47.5 million boxes of cigarettes to be sold by the end of the year at an interior meeting this month, according to a report from Science and Technology Daily.