Tobacco production in Mozambique Plunge From January to June this year, exports increased by 71.7% year-on-year to 200 million meticais (3.1 million US dollars).
This figure is 2.7% lower than the target set for this year. In the same period of 2023, tobacco production revenues amounted to 709 million meticais.
The sharp drop in production has resulted in revenues from the sector accounting for just 1% of Mozambique’s total industrial output, which in the first six months of 2024 amounted to 73.052 billion meticais.
[See more: Mozambican banana exports drop by almost a quarter in 2023]
Tobacco production in Mozambique has experienced ups and downs in recent years. In 2021, tobacco production totaled 7.768 billion meticais (US$121.2 million), but the following year it fell by 53% to just 3.64 billion meticais. In 2023, tobacco production picked up again, increasing by 23% to 4.475 billion meticais.
The authorities had set a target of 7.567 billion meticais for the whole of 2024, a figure roughly in line with the 2021 high, and had previously forecast that the 2023-2024 harvest would cover 129,321 hectares and produce 81,223 tons. This figure has since been revised down to 69,856 hectares and 43,714 tons. The need to adjust expectations is underscored by the fact that the tobacco industry had already fallen by 46.2% by the end of the first quarter of 2024.
A 2023 report by the World Health Organization ranked Mozambique eighth in the world for tobacco cultivation. They estimated that Mozambique has 91,469 hectares of tobacco cultivation, making Mozambique the third largest tobacco-growing country in Africa, after Zimbabwe (112,770 hectares) and Malawi (100,962 hectares).
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