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Chinese Tobacco Firm Helps Zimbabwe To Generate Much-Needed Foreign Income

by Stanley Karombo
Jekesai NJIKIZANA / AFP

In a single file, farm workers carry up to 25 kilogrammes of Virginia leaf tobacco on their shoulders.  Titus Gurupira (45), a farmer on a farm in Mvurwi, 100 km north of Harare, pleads with his workers to hurry with the picking ahead of the hectic marketing season. He is one of 300 farmers contracted by Tian Ze, a subsidiary of China Tobacco International, in Zimbabwe.

Tobacco farmers around here say Chinese interest in ‘the golden leaf’ is improving their income, but the journey has not been easy for either.

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