HANOI, May 17 (Xinhua) -- The Vietnamese government has banned smoking and selling cigarettes in offices, production facilities, schools, hospitals, and on public transport, local newspaper Vietnam News reported Thursday.

    The ban has also been imposed on all forms of advertisement, trade promotion, and sponsorship by tobacco companies, as well as cigarette sales through vending machines, or over telephones and on the Internet.

    The government has asked local authorities to participate in public information campaigns with a view to highlighting harms caused by cigarettes and urging smokers to give up their habits.

    The warning "Smoking will cause lung cancer" will be required to appear on every cigarette package as of next March.

    Vietnamese smokers annually spend 8,213 billion Vietnamese dong(513.3 million U.S. dollars) on cigarettes, according to the Health Ministry. Statistics from the ministry show that over 50 percent of Vietnamese men and around three percent of women smoke cigarettes. Smoking causes 30,000-40,000 deaths in the country each year.