Smoking rate falls to its lowest in three decades

Hong Kong's daily cigarette smoking rate dropped more than half from 23.3% in 1982.

A news.gov.hk report said, “A Census & Statistics Department survey shows the daily cigarette smoking prevalence among the Hong Kong population dropped to 11.1% last year, the lowest rate in the past 30 years.”

The survey revealed there were 709,800 current smokers as of the last quarter of 2010, accounting for 12% of all people aged 15 or over in Hong Kong.

The report added, “Of those current smokers, 659,300 (92.9%) were daily smokers and 50,500 (7.1%) were non-daily smokers.” Meanwhile about 52.9% of the daily cigarette smokers consumed 1-10 cigarettes in a day; and 43.7% consumed 11-20 cigarettes.

The Head of the Department of Health’s Tobacco Control Office, Dr Raymond Ho, said they will enhance services to help people quit smoking through collaboration with different organisations.

View the report here.