Raising the tax on tobacco products in China resulted in a decrease in tobacco consumption in a country where nearly half of all men smoke, according to a World Health Organization report released on Tuesday.

In May last year, China's Ministry of Finance announced the tax increase, and a series of other controls followed. The WHO estimates that the number of cigarettes sold in China between April 2015 and March this year fell by 3.3 percent from the same period a year before, the report said.

The decrease included a 5.5 percent reduction in sales in the cheapest class of cigarettes - indicating that low-income smokers cut back consumption the most, it said.