Vietnam has 16 million smokers nationwide who spend around VND16 trillion (US$800 million) per year to buy tobacco.
Accord to an investigation of a program to strengthen the implementation of a no smoking policy in the country, this figure does not include cost of treatment of diseases caused by smoking.
The investigation conducted through a survey of more than 11,000 households consuming tobacco, revealed that most people knew smoking was harmful to health and half of them even knew that smoking could cause stroke, cardiac diseases and lung cancer.
The numbers seemed to decrease by three times in working people going to offices.
Today, Vietnam remains at number four on a list of countries around the world with the most number of smokers.
