On October 27-29 last year, Hong Kong was host to the World Tobacco International Tobacco Symposium and Trade Fair. Oddly enough, few Hong Kong newspapers paid much attention to "the event for everyone in tobacco", except for two pro-Beijing organs Wen Wei Po and Ta Gung Pao which, presumably with encouragement from the industry, gave full coverage over three days.

The symposium president Jiang Chengkang, deputy director of the China State Tobacco Monopoly, delivered a mainly bland assessment of the status of 400 year old China tobacco. He saw, at the least, stability despite the "impact of anti-smoking propaganda" and the possibility of growth as young people in coastal areas and medium to large cities increase their consumption of blended type cigarettes. In his view, the achievements in the last 20 years included "rejuvenating (the) tobacco industry with science and education ... a complete scientific development and popularisation system, quality supervision ... and the tobacco educational system . . . [Full text of this article]