JTI Leaf Malawi says it had a successful tobacco marketing season as the company managed to buy more than 23 million Kilograms of high quality burley tobacco in 13 weeks despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

JTI leaf Malawi Corporate Affairs and Communications Director Limbani Kakhome said this during a virtual meeting on Tuesday.

Kakhome said overall, a total of 114 million Kilograms of all types of tobacco were sold in all four marketing floors of which, 94 million Kilograms was for Burley tobacco.

“I would like to thank all our growers across Malawi for supplying us with high quality leaf of this particular year. Our quality index this year was better than of last year, we can see that contracted growers are continuously endeavouring to adhere to the agronomy advise and are upping their delivery of quality tobacco,” he said.

He went on to say that buying for 2020 was accelerated due COVID-19, as such they increased volume of buying per day in all four markets floors of Limbe, Lilongwe, Chinkhoma and Mzuzu.

As a way of preparing for 2020-2021 tobacco marketing season, Kakhome said the company’s contracting process is finished and that they have growers who are willing and ready to work with the them for the season.

JTI is a leading international tobacco company with operations in more than 130 countries.

In 2019, the company bought approximately 24 million Kilograms in 20 weeks.