These places will only have to separate smoking from non-smoking areas from May 1, according to the new regulation.

Major cities including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Qingdao are also mulling amendments of laws on public smoking as part of a nationwide campaign in the run-up to the Olympics.

Health experts in Beijing said they hope the city is used as a springboard for drafting a national tobacco control law.

Beijing banned smoking in taxis last October.

Smoking claimed nearly one million people's lives in 2000, accounting for 12 percent of the year's total deaths in China. Without further control measures on smoking, the ratio will rise to 33 percent by 2020 with the death toll reaching two million, Kong Lingzhi, a Ministry of Health official was quoted as saying by earlier reports.