The value of tobacco industry production in Mozambique grew 8.8% to September, compared to the same period in 2023, to 4.591 billion meticais (€67.8 million), according to official data to which Lusa had access on Wednesday.
According to a government report on budget implementation up to the end of the third quarter, with data on the country’s industrial activity, this performance compares with the 4.222 billion meticais (€62.4 million) in 2023 and with the target of 7.567 billion meticais (€111.8 million) set for the tobacco industry for the whole of 2024.
In 2023, the production of the Mozambican tobacco industry, whose main products are filtered cigarettes, homogenised or reconstituted tobacco and pipe tobacco, grew 23% compared to the previous year, reaching 4.475 billion meticais (almost €66.1 million), according to official data previously reported by Lusa.
In the 2022-23 agricultural year, Mozambique had a tobacco cultivation area of 76,850 hectares, and produced 65,856 tonnes of tobacco, a drop of 15% compared to the previous year.
For the 2023-24 campaign, the government previously forecast a cultivated area of 129,321 hectares and a production of 81,223 tonnes.
A report by the World Health Organization (WHO), published in 2023, stated that Mozambique had the eighth largest tobacco cultivation area in the world. With an area cultivated with tobacco estimated by the WHO at 91,469 hectares, Mozambique was, at that time, the third largest producer in the African region, after Zimbabwe (112,770 hectares) and Malawi (100,962).
Brazil, with the world’s third largest cultivation area, 357,230 hectares, and Mozambique are the only nations in the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) referenced in the WHO report.
The document identifies the 50 countries with the largest cultivation area of this plant, once classified as medicinal and currently the target of criticism and political measures against its widespread use.