Zimbabwe urged to add value to exports

Zimbabwe last year lost about US$6 billion through exporting unprocessed tobacco rather than finished tobacco products, according to a New Zimbabwe story quoting policy analyst Butler Tambo.

Tambo, who was addressing an ‘Ideas Festival’ organized by the lobby group, Bulawayo Agenda, said Zimbabwe’s young people should be mentored in a way that encouraged them to venture into value addition and import substitution, on which the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation blueprint could be anchored.

For instance, while unprocessed tobacco sold for an average of $3.66 per kg at the auction floors, threshed tobacco was priced at about $7.30 per kg and cigarettes were priced at about $30.50 per kg, he said.

In monetary terms, he added, the 166 million kg of unprocessed tobacco exported last year had earned $608 million, but Zimbabwe could have earned as much as $6.08 billion from finished cigarettes.