Beijing will strive to make all the city's indoor public places, workplaces and public transport smoke-free by 2015, said local health authorities.

Hospitals, schools, theaters, museums, business halls, stadiums, offices of enterprises and government organizations, as well as buses, taxies and subways, should hopefully be smoke-free by then, said Mao Yu, spokesman of the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau, at a news conference held Friday.

The municipal government issued a smoking ban in the above places in 2008 ahead of the Beijing Olympics, but the rules haven't been effectively implemented.

"The current smoking-control regulations still need to be improved," Mao said.

He said the first step was for health authorities to better implement the smoking ban in medical institutions, as a drop in medical professionals smoking could set an example for society.

China is home to 350 million smokers, a third of the global total. It ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2003, pledging measures to effectively curb tobacco use and ban smoking in all indoor public places, workplaces and public transport.

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2010)