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Zimbabwe Tobacco Sales Delayed on Currency Exchange Concern 

Zimbabwean tobacco sales were delayed after farmers withheld their crops and demanded the central bank announce the exchange rate they will use.

Growers in Zimbabwe, who sell their crop on the world's biggest tobacco auction floors, are paid mainly in Zimbabwean dollars. The bank traditionally offers producers a rate better than the official level of 30,000 Zimbabwe dollars to the U.S. dollar.

``There's deep concern because the black market rate for U.S. dollars has gone through the roof,'' Shame Mundawaropa, a tobacco farmer from Zimbabwe's northern Raffingora district, said yesterday. ``The gap between the official rate and the black market rate is so wide now that we cannot sell

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