Daily News Online
   

Thursday, 24 May 2012

Home

 | SHARE MARKET  | EXCHANGE RATE  | TRADING  | OTHER PUBLICATIONS   | ARCHIVES | 

dailynews
 ONLINE


OTHER PUBLICATIONS


OTHER LINKS

Marriage Proposals
Classified
Government Gazette

South Korean smokers finally start to feel the heat

S KOREA: After decades of indifference, big businesses and the government are turning up the heat on smokers in South Korea, a nation with one of the developed world's highest male smoking rates.

Some firms are pressing workers to kick the habit or miss out on promotion and the health ministry will toughen warnings on cigarette packs.

Seoul council plans eventually to make one fifth of the city's total area smoke-free. Even the military is getting in on the act: army draftees undergoing basic training will get advice from a clinic on ways to quit.

But successive national governments -- fearful of an electoral backlash -- have held back from raising the tax on cigarettes.

Some 44.3 percent of South Korean men smoked in 2009, according to the latest available data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This compares to an average among all member nations of 26.5 percent for men.

The smoking rate among Korean women is low due to social taboos.

Samsung Electronics, the country's largest employer, is at the forefront of efforts to cajole workers to quit smoking.

Executives of its Device Solutions (DS) department, which employs 35,000 people out of a total of 101,970 Samsung Electronics staff in Korea, recently called on staffers to join a non-smoking programme.

A company spokesman said almost all DS employees had made non-smoking pledges as part of what it called a "well-received" voluntary programme. AFP

 

EMAIL |   PRINTABLE VIEW | FEEDBACK

www.apiwenuwenapi.co.uk
LANKAPUVATH - National News Agency of Sri Lanka
www.army.lk
Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL)
www.news.lk
www.defence.lk
Donate Now | defence.lk

| News | Editorial | Business | Features | Political | Security | Sport | World | Letters | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House Copyright © 2012 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.

Comments and suggestions to : Web Editor