The chairman of the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health Henry Tong on Wednesday urged authorities to expand curbs on cigarette products to protect residents from the “harm of passive smoking”, citing that the duty hikes on such products alone are not enough.

His remarks came after attending an awards ceremony held for the city’s leading smoke-free enterprises.

Speaking to reporters after the event, Tong said that while Financial Secretary Paul Chan suggested in his latest Budget to increase cigarette duties by HK$0.8 per cigarette with immediate effect, which in turn increases the proportion of tobacco duty in the retail price of cigarettes to about 70 percent, “that’s still lower compared with the 75 percent mark suggested by the World Health Organisation (WHO)."

Tong said authorities should impose more measures to encourage residents to quit smoking, such as by reaching the WHO suggested tobacco tax level, while increasing such taxes in line with inflation, or by banning sales of flavoured tobacco products.

Separately, acting health minister Libby Lee said at the same event that authorities would keep encouraging the business sector to support smoke control policies, as she hailed the government’s efforts to reduce the city’s smoking prevalence from over 20 percent in the 1980s to 9.5 percent in 2021.

Echoing Lee, the Hospital Authority (HA)’s chairman Henry Fan vowed that the HA would support the government to further reduce the smoking prevalence rate to 7.8 percent by 2025.

Fan noted that there are 70 clinics in the SAR providing smoking cessation services, and the success rate was about 50 percent.