Online Reporter
Edgar Vhera
Specialist Writer – Agribusiness
GOVERNMENT is prioritising value addition as a crucial strategy to enhance earnings and achieve goals outlined in Vision 2030.
This is targeted at transforming raw materials into higher-value products, thereby increasing economic growth, creating jobs and fostering innovation.
Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Deputy Minister Vangelis Haritatos underscored the need to value-add agricultural products before export during a recent Zimbabwe-European Union (EU) business forum, stating that the country must move from exporting low-priced raw commodities to high-value finished products.
“Zimbabwe grows some of the best tobacco in the world, yet we mainly export it raw,” he said.
According to the World Bank, for the 2024 fiscal year, upper-middle-income economies have a Gross National Income (GNI) per capita between US$4 466 and US$13 845.
Statistics from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStats) show that tobacco export earnings rose from US$1 297 280 021 in 2023 to US$1 427 109 343 last year.
Zimbabwe exports its tobacco as partly or whole stemmed/stripped tobacco or not stemmed/stripped, refuse, smoking tobacco, cigarettes containing tobacco, manufactured tobacco, as well as cigars, cheroots and cigarillos containing tobacco.
Partly or wholly stemmed/stripped tobacco accounts for 92 percent of the earnings, with cigarettes containing tobacco in second place at seven percent.
Analyses of average prices for different product classes show that cigars, cheroots and cigarillos containing tobacco had the highest prices of US$41,67 per kilogramme followed by tobacco which was partly or wholly stemmed/stripped at US$7, 22 per kg.
