Malawi Tobacco Production up

Source from:  Sapa-AFP Posted Fri, 09 Jun 2006 Blantyre  06/12/2006

Malawi's earnings from tobacco, its biggest export crop, would rise by nearly 10 percent this year on the back of higher production, said the national tobacco watchdog. "It is projected that the total revenue realised on the (trading) floor will be $178mn, a 9.8 percent increase over last year's revenue of $162mn," Godfrey Chapola, general manager of the Tobacco Control Commission (TCC), said on Thursday. Chapola said the increase "is attributed to slightly higher production of 158 million kilos this year compared to 145 million last year." Malawi is the world's biggest exporter of burley, a thin-leafed tobacco variety. "Green gold," as tobacco is known locally, earns the impoverished Southern Africa nation about 70 percent of its foreign exchange income. The industry employs more than 500 000 people. Enditem