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Malawi Plans Increased Surveillance to Curb Tobacco Smuggling 

Malawi, the world’s largest producer of burley tobacco, will step up surveillance at its borders to curb smuggling of as much as a third of the country’s crop every year, the industry regulator said.

The southern African nation’s police, the Malawi Revenue Authority and the Tobacco Association of Malawi are being asked to “help us arrest this problem,” Bruce Munthali, chief executive officer of the Tobacco Control Commission, said in an interview today from Lilongwe, the capital.

“We are losing a lot of revenue in the form of taxes and direct revenue from sales due to smuggling of our tobacco,” Munthali said. “It’s a very big problem considering that tobacco is our economic mainstay. Every year, between 10 percent and 30 percent of our leaf is smuggled to Zambia and Mozambique.”

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