China vowed yesterday to organize a "non-smoking" Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, but health officials admitted that changing the habits of 350 million smokers in the country would be difficult.

China would enforce a ban on smoking in public places, a Health Ministry official told a news conference in Beijing yesterday, specially those places that offer services to children.

"Smoking will be banned at all Olympic-designated hospitals by the end of 2007," Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Bin with the Health Ministry as saying.

The ban would also apply to public transport and in offices, Zhang said, acknowledging that changing habits would be hard.

"China faces many obstacles to overcome in hosting a non-smoking Olympics," he said.

The ministry's vow came as Beijing passed the 10th anniversary of its ban on smoking in public places.

In practice, many of the capital's millions of smokers fail to abide by the bans since they run only a slight risk of punishment or complaint from bystanders.

China is the world largest producer and consumer of cigarettes with nearly 2 trillion sticks consumed a year.

Tax on cigarettes contributed 159 billion yuan (US$19.8 billion) to the government in 2005, around 5 percent of fiscal revenues.

The World Health Organization estimates that smoking kills 1.2 million people a year in China.

(Agencies via Shenzhen Daily May 30, 2006)