The country's dream to reduce trade in raw tobacco and increase value addition may be taking shape amid revelations that cigarette exports rose 49 percent from US$71 million in 2022 to US$106 million last year.
Debate on the matter took centre stage at a recent tobacco conference with stakeholders castigating the idea of continued raw tobacco exports when the country could easily be Africa's leading cigarette exporter.
Chevron Tobacco Company executive director, Mr Tapiwa Masedza said Zimbabwe was instead the leading exporter of raw leaf tobacco in African yet it did not feature among the top five cigarette exporters surrendering its spot to non-tobacco producing countries.
"The top five leading leaf exporters in Africa are Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia yet none of these countries features among the top five cigarette exporters on the continent.
"We are now talking of non-leaf producing countries like South Africa, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal and Ivory Coast, as the continent's top cigarette exporters," he said.
Statistics recently released by Trade Statistics for International Business Development (ITC Trade Map) show that no African country is on the world's list of 30 top cigarette exporters in 2023.
The report also revealed that Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco and Tunisia in that decreasing order, were the leading cigarette exporters. Zimbabwe was sixth in Africa and 42 in world rankings.
