Tobacco Processing Plants Shut Down

Source from:  sabcnews.com September 18, 2006, 14:15 09/19/2006

The drop in tobacco production has caused two processing plants of the SA Golden Leaf Company in Nelspruit and Potgietersrus to close down. Heine Botes, the company's managing director, says the decrease in the volume of tobacco production is one of the reasons that has prompted the company to close. Botes says for the last three years there has been a decrease in production figures. Botes says the company needed to process 5 million kilograms of tobacco per season for it to be viable, but received only 4.6 million this year. He says for three years the volume of tobacco has decreased quite significantly in especially the Lowveld area. So the tobacco that they received to processing their plant has decreased from 18 million kg to 4.6 million kg this year. That resulted in the unit price of processing being too high and they could not process tobacco for a good average rate. Enditem