The World Health Organisation (WHO) today urged Southeast Asian nations to carefully weigh the public health risks of liberalisation of tobacco trading under a free trade deal.

The 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations should take into account the established link between tobacco and poverty in the region when debating the Asean Free Trade Agreement, WHO said.

The call came as Asean officials prepared to meet in Penang on Monday and Tuesday next week to discuss the impact of the accord on the tobacco trade and health.

Globalisation and liberalisation had brought economic benefits, but "there are some things we certainly should not be intentionally spreading (and) the tobacco epidemic is one of them," said Shigeru Omi, regional director of WHOs Western Pacific Region.

Three thousand people die each day in the region from tobacco-related diseases with the poor hardest hit, WHO said in a statement.

Freer tobacco trade

Many countries assumed that the benefits of lowering or eliminating trade barriers - increases in revenues, jobs and incomes - also apply to the tobacco trade.

"The reality of tobacco use is that the economic costs to society are staggering," said Omi, pointing to World Bank figures showing the net costs of tobacco use exceed estimates of the economic benefits by at least RM760 billion a year.

"Trade liberalisation will most likely increase death, disease and the economic costs due to tobacco use, primarily by making cigarettes and tobacco products cheaper, more accessible, more easily marketed and promoted," Omi said.

The Penang meeting will focus on the conflict between the goals of trade liberalisation and tobacco control, and follow up on a previous Asean commitment to ensure that the trade pact does not undermine national, regional and international measures to curb tobacco, the WHO said.