(NEWZIMBABWE) Tobacco sales jump 33 percent
Tobacco sales jump 33 percentby Nelson Gore Banya I Bloomberg
02/03/2011 00:00:00
ZIMBABWE'S income from tobacco sales has jumped 33 percent since the marketing season started last month compared with a year earlier, as a rise in sales outweighs a drop in prices, the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board said.
The southern African nation has earned about US$12 million from sales of the leaf since February 16, up from US$9 million a year earlier, the board said in an e-mailed statement on Wednesday.
About 4.1 million kilograms (9 million pounds) of tobacco has been sold at an average price of $2.09 a kilogram, compared with 2.5 million kilograms at $3.06 per kilogram last year, it said.
Tobacco production in Zimbabwe is still below peak levels of about 236 million kilograms achieved in 2000, before the country's often-violent seizures of most white-owned farms.
[That is incorrenct - it is at a peak since the year 2002, when ZDERA froze the state's lines of credit, and international trade is done on credit. The attempt to blame land redistribution or 'land invasions' for the decline in tobacco sales is getting very tired. Here is the real data, with source listed:
Tobacco Exports (millions USD:
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
548.8 594.1 434.6 321.3 226.7 203.8
Source: Special Report FAO/WFP Crop And Food Supply Assessment Mission To Zimbabwe, 5 June 2007; Table 1: Zimbabwe - Key economic indicators, 2000-2007
Notice how tobacco exports did not decline in 2000, and actually rose in 2001. They fell after ZDERA was signed into law on December 21st 2001. - MrK]
Output slipped to a low of 58.6 million kilograms in 2009, reflecting the effects of a political and economic crisis that peaked during 2008.
Zimbabwe’s tobacco output may rise 38 percent to 170 million kilograms this season as more farmers grow the crop and as the nation’s “economic environment” improves, Andrew Matibiri, the board’s chief executive officer, said.
Small-scale tobacco farmers currently account for more than half of Zimbabwe’s output, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made said on the same day. As production rises, farmers should now focus on improving quality, he said.
Zimbabwe earned $347.8 million from tobacco sales last year, according to the board, which oversees the industry. China was the main buyer of Zimbabwe’s crop, replacing Western companies that were traditionally the biggest buyers, it said.
Zimbabwe is the world’s sixth-largest exporter of the flue-cured variety of the leaf, which is also known as Virginia tobacco. It lags behind Brazil, India, the U.S., Argentina and Tanzania, according to the website of Universal Corp., the world’s biggest tobacco-leaf merchant.
posted by MrK @ 2:35 PM
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