Representatives of indigenous tobacco companies have asked the Zimbabwean government to help them secure export markets to widen their revenue base, reports The Herald.
Company officials met separately with the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Resettlement chaired by Felix Maburutse on Sept. 20.
Richard Machingura, head of operations and agronomy at Norton Leaf Tobacco, said indigenous-owned companies in the tobacco sector were struggling to access foreign markets and would benefit from assistance from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, which regulates the domestic industry.
“As tobacco companies, we are also facing some challenges in the markets,” he was quoted as saying. “You will find that most of our tobacco locally, we are just doing the intermediate trading. So, we have a challenge of markets where we are not really able to export our tobacco, and this is affecting the growth of our industry,” he said.
Zimbabwe’s tobacco export earnings increased 138 percent year-on-year to reach $436 million in the first quarter of this year.
Traditionally a leading exporter of flue-cured Virginia, the country aims to extract more revenue from the business by moving to higher value products, such as cigarettes.
In 2021, the government adopted the tobacco value chain transformation plan, which seeks to build a $5 billion industry by 2025.