According to official figures, Mozambique’s tobacco industry output fell by 71.7% year-on-year in the first half of the year to 200 million meticais (€2.8 million), 2.7% of the target set for the full year.
According to a government report seen by Lusa on Tuesday, with data on the country’s industrial activity, this figure compares with 709 million meticais (9.9 million euros) in the first half of 2023 and with the target of 7.567 million meticais (106.1 million euros) set for the tobacco industry for the whole of 2024.
Thus, revenues from the tobacco sector accounted for only 1% of Mozambique’s total industrial production from January to June, amounting to 73,052 million meticais (1,024 million euros).
According to Lusa, the tobacco sector has already contracted by 46.2% in the first quarter.
For the whole of 2021, the production of the Mozambican tobacco industry amounted to 7,768 million meticais (108.9 million euros), and the following year this figure fell to 3,640 million meticais (51 million euros).
The document also estimates for the 2023/2024 campaign a cropping target of 69,856 hectares and a production target of 43,714 tons of tobacco in the country.
Mozambique’s tobacco industry production in 2023 increased by 23% compared to the previous year, reaching 4.475 million meticais (almost 62.7 million euros), official data previously reported by Lusa show.
In the 2022-2023 agricultural year, Mozambique’s tobacco cultivation area was 76,850 hectares, producing 65,856 tons of tobacco, down 15% from the previous year.
For the 2023-2024 campaign, the government had previously forecast an area of 129,321 hectares and production of 81,223 tons.
A World Health Organization (WHO) report published in 2023 stated that Mozambique ranks eighth in the world in terms of tobacco cultivation area. With an area under tobacco estimated by WHO at 91,469 hectares, Mozambique was then the third producer in the African region after Zimbabwe (112,770 hectares) and Malawi (100,962 hectares).
Brazil, which has the third largest area under cultivation (357,230 hectares), and Mozambique are the only countries from the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) mentioned in the WHO report.
The document identifies 50 countries with the largest growing areas of the plant, once classified as a medicinal plant but now the subject of criticism and political action against its widespread use.