Zimbabwe Tobacco Selling Days Increased

Source from:  The Herald 03/19/2010

Harare - The Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board has increased tobacco selling days to five a week in response to an upsurge in deliveries to the auction floors. Initially sales were conducted on Tuesday and Thursday only, but an extra day was added last week. Yesterday TIMB chief executive Dr Andrew Matibiri said: "Because of the high volumes of tobacco delivered on Tuesday and Wednesday, auction sales floors are granted permission to extend daily sales to 1:30pm on Thursday 18 and Friday 19 March and from there onwards sales will be conducted daily. The number of farmers delivering their crop to the floor is increasing daily." Zimbabwe Industry Tobacco Auction centre spokesperson Ms Kudzayi Hamadziripi said they had asked for permission to conduct two sales on Thursday. A total of 4 103 819kg of tobacco have passed through the auction floors compared to 7 999 083kg over the same period last year. Farmers have expressed satisfaction with this year's prices, which are averaging US$3,43 per kg compared to US$2,94 last season. The 2010 tobacco-selling season opened earlier than in previous years to ease farmers' cash flow constraints. In past years, growers had problems getting their money and spent days camped at the floors waiting for payment. Enditem