Bashe: Future of tobacco subsector promising
TANZANIA: THE Minister for Agriculture Hussein Bashe has affirmed that the future of Tanzania’s tobacco subsector is promising, with expected increase of market for the produce.
Mr Bashe on Saturday stated through his X account that the sector has started attracting more market with potential investors showing interest to establish industries for processing the crop locally.
“The future of the Tobacco subsector in Tanzania is promising. Saturday, I met a new buyer of tobacco and agreed with him to collaborate in establishing a factory in Morogoro for producing cigarette brands of BMJ Company in Tanzania by 2014/25,” tweeted Mr Bashe.
He revealed that the factory for this purpose is expected to be established in the Morogoro region. However, the specific location was not disclosed in the tweet.
This deal marks a continuation of Minister Bashe and the government’s efforts to boost the agricultural sector and protect the interests of farmers in the country.
In May, Minister Bashe explained that Mkwawa Leaf Tobacco as a new firm targets to buy one-third of the entire country’s tobacco leaves produced in this season.
Also, the Morogoro-based company now plans to buy 45,000 tonnes of tobacco leaves during this season, which began late last month, out of a projected total of 125,592 tonnes in 2022/23.
Tanzania Tobacco Board (TTB), Crop Development and Regulatory Service Manager Oscar Simwanza, told ‘Daily News’ recently that in 2022/23 purchasing season —the projection was125,592 tonnes.
In the global tobacco production rankings, Tanzania held the ninth position in 2021, with Bangladesh surpassing it by producing 124,000 tonnes. India, Brazil, and Zimbabwe claimed the second, third, and fourth positions, respectively.
Previously Minister Bashe tweeted to share detailed statistics regarding the quantities of tobacco purchased by various companies and their corresponding values in US dollar.
According to the report, tobacco purchasing companies made substantial acquisitions, with a total estimated value of approximately 164.86 million US dollar.
In the previous endeavour to strengthen the tobacco sector in 2022, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa held discussions with the board of directors of Japan Tobacco International (JTI).
In the course, he successfully convinced them to commit to purchasing 30 million kilogrammes of tobacco from Tanzanian farmers in the 2022/23 season.
