British American Tobacco Zimbabwe Holdings scaling down its functions in nation amidst signs that company could resort to outsourcing various regional manufacturers from its international system

Nevin Barich

INDIA , November 18, 2013 (Tendersinfo) – BRITISH American Tobacco (BAT) Zimbabwe Holdings Ltd is scaling down its functions in the nation amongst signs the cigarette manufacturer could resort to outsourcing various regional manufacturers from its international system, increasing worries of retrenchments.

This comes as it appeared BAT could be thinking stopping all production functions in Zimbabwe.

Well-placed sources within the organization said BAT is now manufacturing the Madison 30 pack in South Africa for sale in Zimbabwe, and has ceased cut rag functions for Mozambique, a sign the company could soon be getting out of the Zimbabwe market.

A BAT source said, Initially, only the Dunhill Brand was coming from South Africa. Now both Madison and Dunhill are coming from there.

BAT said, As a global company we pride ourselves in the diversity of our teams and the opportunities that our company offers for training and international exposure for local and international employees and that our Zimbabwe operation, as situated in a strategic international tobacco market, is considered an important destination.

Given this global platform, BAT Zimbabwe can, and has, taken a strategic decision to leverage the machine capacity installed in one of the company s hub factories to offer our consumers the innovation of a Madison 30s pack format. Our manufacturing facility in Zimbabwe continues to produce at full capacity all our quality local brands in the 20s and 10s formats.

BAT Zimbabwe (BATZ) continues to be a strong business and counter on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. Through our Employee Share Ownership Trust we have given employees the opportunity to become part owners in the business towards building the long term sustainability of the business, the organization said.

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