Across China: Hubei

County kills smoking order

A county authority yesterday backed down on a rule urging officials to smoke local brand cigarettes to boost tax income after it was reported in a newspaper.

Officials in Gong'an county were encouraged to smoke more than 230,000 packs a year, Hubei-based Chutian Metropolis Daily reported on Sunday. Departments of officials who smoked brands made outside the county were to be fined, it said.