According to legal requirements, the tobacco manufacturing and/or exporting companies are required to indicate their tobacco requirements by the 21st of October of each year in respect of the ensuing crop to the Pakistan Tobacco Board. After lengthy discussions between the Board and other stakeholders like buyers, growers, dealers, etc and taking into account the factors like crop size, prices, domestic usage and exports, these figures are finalised.
The following requirements for 2005 crop indicated by the tobacco companies have been widely publicised by the Pakistan Tobacco Board in order to inform the growers to plan tobacco production for 2005 crop accordingly and to avoid surplus/short crop:
The projected requirements for tobacco crop 2005 of Flue-Cured Virginia, Dark Air-Cured, White Patta (Rustica) and Burley are higher by 18.98%, 107.12%, 120.48% and 10.31% compared to production/purchases by the tobacco companies during the 2004 crop respectively.
The tobacco growers are, therefore, advised to plan production of tobacco crop 2005 keeping in view the aforementioned purchase targets of tobacco industry. They are further advised to execute agreements with the tobacco companies of their choice so that no problem is encountered in its proper marketing at fair prices.
The tobacco companies will purchase tobacco according to their indicated requirements from 'contracted growers' or 'agreement-holders' and not from growers who cultivate tobacco without any contract or agreement with a company or the so-called 'Azad Growers'.
The concluding message is that the tobacco growers should not grow Virginia tobacco without agreements while the tobacco companies should ensure compliance with the provision of law which envisages execution of agreements for their targeted requirements by the end of December, each year.

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                                                        (Million Kgs)
S No     Tobacco Company   Flue-cured    Dark Air-     White    Burley     Total
                            Virginia      cured        Patta
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1 Lakson Tobacco Co         34.000        1.000        1.000     0.750    36.750
2 Pakistan Tobacco Co       23.100        0.400        1.200     1.000    25.700
3 Souvenir Tobacco Co        0.750            -            -         -     0.750
4 Imperial Cigarette Ind     0.400            -            -         -     0.400
5 Sarhad Cigarette Ind       0.300        0.020        0.020     0.015     0.355
6 Walton Tobacco Co          0.400            -        0.050         -     0.450
7 International Cig Ind      0.300            -            -         -     0.300
8 Saleem Cigarette Ind       0.080            -            -         -     0.080
9 Universal Tobacco Co       0.060            -            -         -     0.060
10 Wattan Tobacco Co         0.060            -            -         -     0.060
11 Hiltop Tobacco Co         0.052        0.005        0.010         -     0.067
12 Bilal Tobacco Co          0.040            -            -         -     0.040
13 Khyber Tobacco Co         0.100            -            -         -     0.100
14 National Tobacco Ind      0.150            -        0.030         -     0.180
15 Shaheen Tobacco Co        0.050            -        0.005         -     0.055
              Total:        59.842        1.425        2.315     1.765    65.347
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