The number of people dying from deaths caused by smoking in China is going to be triple by the next twenty years if there is no check to the present scenario. Over 3.5 million Chinese will die due to smoking every year by 2030 as compared to the present 1.2 million deaths in 2005.

A team of 60 public health experts, officials, and economists in a report published on Thursday argued that the state-owned tobacco industry is blocking the anti-tobacco campaign in the country. China is the largest tobacco producer and consumer in the world and heavy revenue is collected every year from this industry.

The report was published ahead of a Jan. 9 deadline to ban smoking in workplaces and public transportation that the Government agreed to in 2006, when it signed the World Health Organization's 2005 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. But the Government seems to be reluctant to enforce the ban.

The radio, television or newspaper ads are yet to be censored and the cigarette companies are enjoying the loopholes in the restrictions, putting up the Company logos in many non-tobacco products.

According to Zhao Ping, the Deputy Director General of the Cancer Foundation of China and also a member of the team, the Chinese government has failed to understand that the long-term cost of the burden will outshine the revenue earned from the industry. The health costs to tobacco-related diseases were nearly 600 billion Yuan ($90.66 billion) last year and it will grow steadily to an uncomfortable height for the Government.

Mr. Ping warned, "A snapshot of China's smoking problem now looks like America in the 1940s. People just don't know the health risks."