Zimbabwe Announces Tobacco Clean-up Dates

Source from:  Xinhua 09/11/2006

Zimbabwe's Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) on Sunday announced that the country's final flue-cured tobacco clean-up sales will begin on Sept. 26. The announcement of the mop-up sales date follows the end of the main selling season of flue-cured tobacco last Friday. Burley tobacco sales are continuing up to Friday this week. The board said over the weekend the mop-up sales might be conducted for more than one day if there were more deliveries. "Depending on the volume of deliveries the clean-up sales may be conducted for more than one day," TIMB technical services executive Andrew Matibiri said. Accordingly all growers are advised to complete their grading and baling operations and to continue to deliver their tobacco up to Monday Sept. 25, 2006. Matibiri said the existing booking-in system would continue unaltered while all deliveries should be booked into the system before sale to ensure they were subjected to the stop order system. He said all defective bales would be declared for the defect prior to sales while no appeals may be made on declared defective bales except for foreign matter. Meanwhile, by close of business on Thursday last week, a total of 53.7 million kilograms of flue-cured tobacco worth 107.9 million U.S. dollars had been sold at an average price of 2.01 dollars per kg, compared with 59.9 million kg worth 98.1 million dollars sold at an average price of 1.63 dollars during the same period last year. An estimated 55 million kg of flue cured tobacco is expected to go under the hammer this year, down from 74 million kg last year. Enditem