The illicit trade in tobacco last year cost governments $40 billion in lost tax revenues and amounted to 10.7 percent of the world trade in cigarettes, experts told a global health conference here Monday.

'Smuggled and counterfeit cigarettes are sold at lower prices than legal products, contributing to higher consumption and greater rates of smoking-related illness and death,' said Luk Joossens, senior policy advisor of the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA), in his opening address to a global conference on tobacco-related issues.

'The illicit tobacco trade also deprives governments of billions of dollars of tax revenue reducing funding available for public health and other programmes,' said Joossens.

A major goal of this week's global health conference in Bangkok was to highlight the need to implement the international tobacco control treaty - the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control of the World Health Organization (FCTC) - to crack down on cigarette smuggling.

Combating the illicit trade is a provision of the FCTC, which has been ratified by 147 countries and the European Community.

Tobacco control advocates at the meeting in Bangkok this week are urging FCTC parties to agree to begin work on a new international treaty aimed at stemming losses to national budgets by eliminating illicit tobacco trade.

'The amount of funding needed to negotiate and implement this treaty would be roughly equivalent to the profits gained annually from just two containers of smuggled cigarettes in the European Union,' said Deborah Arnott, board member of FCA.

The Framework Convention Alliance is made up of some 300 organizations representing over 100 countries around the world. It was created to support the development, ratification, and implementation of the WHO FCTC.