The government has announced it will fully enforce the ban on smoking in public areas, including restaurants, from Jan 1.

Ho Su Mong, the chairman of the Malaysia-Singapore Coffee Shop Proprietors’ General Association, had told FMT the health ministry was not doing enough to reduce the smoking population.

“This statement is inaccurate,” said the ministry’s disease control division in a statement.

It said since the ratification of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) in 2005, the prevalence of smoking among youths aged 13-15 in Malaysia had been reduced from 20.25% in 2003 to 18.20% in 2009 and 14.80% in 2016.

This was based on the Global Youth Tobacco Survey.

The ministry’s latest statistics, for 2017, show that the prevalence has further dropped to 13.2%.

However, the division admitted that the ministry needed to do more to help adult smokers quit smoking.

“Quit smoking” clinics in government centres were strengthened in 2016.

Now, the ministry is collaborating with private hospitals and community pharmacies to offer services to those wishing to quit smoking under the Malaysia Quit Smoking Programme, or mQuit.

Regarding the statement by Muthusamy Thirumeni, the president of the Malaysian Indian Restaurant Owners Association, that those in rural areas were not as aware of the smoking ban as those who lived in urban areas, the ministry said the government had been educating people in both rural and urban areas on the harms of smoking.