MANILA -- Some 40,000 to 50,000 teenagers in Asia take up smoking every day and about a quarter of them will die from the habit unless governments impose tougher tobacco control laws, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday.

WHO noted that tobacco control laws in Asia are "among the weakest worldwide, with low taxes on cigarettes, poor regulations on advertising and almost no control on sponsorship".

Only Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand are exceptions to the rule, it said.

"Some of the heaviest tobacco advertising is in Cambodia, where street advertising rose by 400 per cent in just four years during the 1990s, and in Malaysia, where tobacco firms have accounted for 20 to 25 per cent of total advertising in recent years," it said.

"In both these countries in the early 1990s, free cigarettes were given to youth at some events," it added.

In the Philippines, which has no laws prohibiting cigarette sales to minors, WHO said more than half of children aged 7 to 17 now smoke -- a 150 per cent increase since 1987.

"At current rates, about a quarter of youths may die from smoking in East Asia and the Pacific," it warned. "Smoking will kill a third of all young men alive today in China and 1 million children alive in Cambodia." WHO urged Asian governments to implement comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising and sponsorships of major events to help prevent young people from taking up smoking.

"The industry is seeking a new generation of young smokers to 'replace' the millions who die from tobacco," warned Shigeru Omi, regional director for WHO's Western Pacific Region, which covers 37 countries in east Asia and the Pacific.

Omi said WHO's Western Pacific Region has launched a campaign to make sports free of all tobacco advertising, sponsorship, consumption and sales as part of the initiative to reduce the number of youths being lured into the deadly habit.

He noted that the 2002 FIFA World Cup, which kicks off on May 31, World No-Tobacco Day, will be a tobacco-free event.

WHO said tobacco control has helped reduce smoking rates in many countries, such as in Thailand, where male smoking rates were cut from 60 per cent to less than 40 per cent in the 1990s.

Studies also show that a 10 per cent tax increase on cigarettes worldwide could persuade 40 million smokers to quit, while a complete advertising and sponsorship ban has reduced cigarette consumption by an average of 8 per cent per capita in 100 countries.

WHO was quoted by DPA as saying advertising and sponsorhip bans must be comprehensive since partial prohibitions have little effect, with "tobacco companies often finding ways to bypass them". "In Malaysia, for example, tobacco companies cannot advertise cigarettes directly," it said. "But they can use brand names, which are now all too familiar through a plethora of 'products' such as the Benson and Hedges bistro, Dunhill accessories, Marlboro clothing, Kent horizon tours and Salem Cool Planet concerts."