The price increase in tobacco introduced in the budget should serve as a deterrent to young smokers and those toying with the idea of starting, according to Health Promotion Department principal scientific officer Maria Ellul.
However, although she welcomed the increase, Ms Ellul warned that the prices on tobacco in Malta were still not high enough.
"While this increase should serve as a good incentive to help smokers quit, especially the younger generation, I feel the price should be increased further to enable us to achieve our goals," she said when contacted for her reaction.
Finance Minister John Dalli announced in the budget speech on Monday that the government would be increasing excise duty on cigarettes. A packet of 20 king size will now cost Lm1.25 at retail price, while a packet of 20 standard size will be sold at Lm1.10.
Excise duty on hand-rolled tobacco will go up to Lm22.25 per kilogramme, while that on cigars will go up to Lm5 every 20 units.
Ms Ellul said that a framework convention on tobacco control was being drawn up by the 191 member states (including Malta) of the United Nations.
"Negotiations to ratify this convention have been going on for the past two years. This will be adopted by the World Health assembly in May," she said.
Although taxation on tobacco was seen as one of the best deterrents, it was not the only way to help smokers kick the habit.
Ms Ellul said that in several countries the government's revenue from tax on tobacco was pumped back into health promotion initiatives to provide the smoker with medication to quit smoking.
"In Malta, smoking cessation aids are not yet part of the medicinals provided by the national health services," she said.
"Two years ago, we calculated that the government's revenue from tobacco taxation stood at around Lm14 million. If just one per cent of this sum went back to health promotion we would be empowered to help smokers quit."
Another measure announced by Mr Dalli in the budget was the subsidy scheme to parents which will be introduced on day care service payments for children under three years.
Child Care Task Force chairman Godfrey Baldacchino said he was pleased that the government had taken up one of the recommendations submitted by the task force a year ago.
"Fiscal benefits to parents sending children under three to licensed child care centres, following means testing, are an acknowledgment of the hardship that parents, and especially mothers, have to bear when they choose - or are obliged - to send their very young children to care centres," he said.
"This measure should indirectly also help to facilitate labour market participation by men and women who are parents of very young children," he added.
Meanwhile, the reaction of people on the streets of Valletta was that the budget these days had become pretty much a non-event.
Others said they still had to sift through the nitty-gritty before commenting.
The majority welcomed the reductions in income tax through the adjustment of tax bands, while others queried the introduction of VAT on electricity and gas cylinders, which Mr Dalli said would be absorbed by Enemalta.
"Enemalta is in debt, so will this mean that this tax will eventually be absorbed by the taxpayer?" one woman asked.