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Korea will ratify the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in the first half of this year, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday. The treaty calls for sweeping restrictions on the sale and consumption of tobacco products, including a ban on tobacco advertisements, stronger health warnings and a hike in tobacco prices.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare is in the process of ratifying the FCTC, signed by former minister Kim Hwa-joong at the UN headquarters in New York in July 2003. "Discussions with relevant ministries such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Finance Ministry were completed in November," a Foreign Ministry official said. "As the treaty will go into effect globally from February, we plan to hurry Legislative Office deliberations and get it ratified within the first half of the year."
International treaties are usually ratified by the National Assembly, but as the FCTC entails no budget outlays, ratifying it would likely take only a Cabinet discussion and the president's approval. Signed by 168 countries, the treaty has been ratified by 49 nations including France, and will go into effect from Feb. 28. It seeks to control tobacco consumption worldwide, and marks the first health-related treaty that includes plans for international cooperation.
Signatories must raise the price of tobacco products and comprehensively ban or restrict within five years all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. Within three years, they must print warning messages taking up more than 30 percent of the surface area of cigarette packs and ban terms such as "light" or "low tar." To curb smuggling and illegal manufacturing, the nation or region of consumption must be printed on the pack.
The Ministry of Health plans to amend health promotion and tobacco business laws in line with the treaty, ban visual tobacco advertising in print and broadcast media and enlarge warning labels from the current 20 percent of the packet surface. It also plans to publish warning images such as photos of cancerous lungs.
This year's W500 cigarette price hike and plans for an additional W500 increase were the result of international plans to increase tobacco prices through heavy taxation following the signing of the FCTC in 2003.
(Kim Dong-seop, dskim@chosun.com )
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