Malawi hosts tobacco meet
Malawi is today hosting Tobacco Coalition for Eastern and Southern Africa also known as T5 Meeting at the Bingu International Convention Center (Bicc) in Lilongwe.
The objective of the meeting seeks to come up with country positions on tobacco as an important and strategic commodity for the participating countries and livelihoods of their poor farmers.
Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) chief executive officer Bruce Munthali said Malawi was chosen as interim chair for the meeting in May 2015 in Cape Town, South Africa because of her tobacco dependent economy.
“This is a government-driven meeting after President Mutharika met major tobacco buyers in the United States [US] such as Philip Morris and Universal Leaf to consider issues of increasing foreign exchange earnings, creation of employment and tax gains,” said Munthali.
Delegates from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mozambique, Uganda and Kenya will attend the meeting.
