H

ealth Minister Nafsiah Mboi says she is disappointed at the House ofRepresentatives' request to delay signing and ratifying the World Health Organization's(WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

The FCTC is a global convention designed to curb the tobacco trade and thenegative impacts of smoking.

Currently Indonesia is the only country in the Asia Pacific that has yet tosign and ratify the convention.

According to Nafsiah, the House has sent a letter to President Susilo BambangYudhoyono requesting a delay to the ratification because they are in the middleof revising the Tobacco Law, as reported by Antara news agency.

"There is no connection between the FCTC and the Tobacco Law because theFCTC is a convention on the health and welfare of the people. It does notconcern the trade in or production of tobacco," she said after the openingactivity at the Indonesia Conference on Tobacco or Health (ICTOH) in Jakarta on Friday.

She added that the Health Ministry would provide information to the Houseimmediately to explain that the FCTC did not regulate trade or production oftobacco, because reducing the number of smokers in Indonesia was an urgentmatter.

According to a Health Ministry survey conducted in 2013, the number of smokershad reached 90 million people, or 36.3 percent of the total population.Furthermore, 68.8 percent of males and 6.9 percent of females are smokers.

The WHO have predicted that non-communicable diseases will be the cause of 75percent of deaths around the globe in 2030, with 80 percent of those deathsoccurring in lower-middle income countries such as Indonesia.(fss)