A recent government survey showed the smoking rate for male adults has begun to rise in recent months.

According to the survey released by the ministry for health, welfare and family affairs, the male smoking rate was 41.4 per cent during the six months of the year, up 0.7 per cent from the same period last year. The number of smokers had been falling since 2005 when the government signed the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and started to launch non-smoking campaigns. After toughened measures were taken on smoking, the adult smoking rate steadily decreased from 57.8 per cent in 2004 to 52.3 per cent in 2005, 44.1 per cent in 2006 and 42 per cent in 2007. But the figure hovered above the 40 percent range recently and has started to increase during the second half of last year. Financial pressure on the individual, caused by the global economic crisis, has been suggested as one of the main reasons for the increase. Health officials say, however, the slight increase seems to be driven more by the weakening effect of related policies. “During the early period of smoking regulations, the smoking rate dropped sharply. But those measures are losing momentum after five years and we plan to overhaul the overall current policies,” said a ministry official. While the rate for female smokers decreased slightly to 3.6 per cent from 3.7 per cent of last year, the nation’s average smoking rate was 22.1 per cent, up 0.2 per cent from last year. In June 2009, the health ministry conducted a phone survey on 3,000 people. According to the survey, 58.7 per cent of smoking respondents said they smoked out of habit and 32.5 per cent smoked due to stress. When buying cigarettes, 42.6 per cent said they consider the taste and smell first, while levels of toxic ingredients and branding were considered by 30.8 per cent and 9.3 per cent of smokers, respectively. The average starting age of male smokers was 21.2, females started smoking at 26.3 years. More than 70 per cent of smokers responded that they had tried to quit smoking to improve their health. All but 10.7 per cent attempted to quit smoking by themselves without the help of experts. (sra)