admintheir crop.
Combined deliveries at the auction floors are now averaging 1,5 million kg a day down from an initial 3,5million a day when the selling season opened.
“During the peak period just before the Easter holidays, auction floors were receiving between 3-3,5 million kg of tobacco per day. We will not revise our target of 170 million kg and we are confident we are going to beat it,” he said.
Dr Matibiri said tobacco was still coming in with the contractors still receiving high volumes. He said it was too early to close the selling season as tobacco was still coming in.
“We will only come up with closing dates if tobacco deliveries fall to about 200 000kg per day,” he said.
TIMB statistics show that 139,1 million kg of tobacco worth US$514 million have been sold since February. So far, contractors raked in 65 percent of the 2013 sales.
More than 90 million kg have been sold through the contract floors while 49 million kg were sold through the auction floors. TIMB states that about 75 000 farmers have delivered their crop against 90 638 who had registered for the 2013 selling season.
Last year, 68 604 growers had registered by the same period. Burley tobacco deliveries have continued with 107 440 kg sold worth US$157 852 having been delivered since the market opened in April.
Online Reporter