Beijing - Cigarette manufacturers in China, the world's biggest tobacco market, face their first lawsuit from smokers, Miriam Donohoe reports. A Beijing law firm confirmed yesterday that it is among a group of solicitors planning to sue Chinese and foreign tobacco firms.
The news came weeks after the Chinese government approved plans from British American Tobacco to build a large cigarette-manufacturing factory in Sichuan Province. A spokesman for the Zhi Chen law firm in Beijing confirmed that it is preparing a lawsuit. It is understood it will sue local and foreign firms on behalf of teenage smokers on the grounds of a breach of consumer and advertising laws.
China has 320 million smokers. It is estimated that there are five million teenage smokers in China, with adolescent smoking increasing partly due to the availability of cheap foreign imports on the black market. Contraband cigarettes are thought to be the biggest threat to China's young people. The Journal of the American Medical Association said recently that at current smoking rates, by 2005 there will be about two million smoking-related deaths in China every year.