Cottco profit up 517%

The Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco), the country’s largest producer and buyer of cotton seed saw its sales soar from $10.7 billion to $73.8 billion in the six months to September.

This was despite reports that some growers who had received inputs from the company sold their cotton to its competitors.

President Robert Mugabe also said the company had been under invoicing its exports, declaring as little as one third of the bales it had exported, thus externalising some of the money.

The company says it had weeded out growers who did not meet their obligations in order to ensure the sustainability of its input credit scheme and to reward grower loyalty.

But it says there is need for a regulatory framework which requires that all players in the cotton industry to contribute to seed cotton production.

According to its report operating profit increased from $3.6 billion to $26.9 billion while net profit shot up from $3.6 billion to $21.9 billion, an increase of 517 percent.

The company says its subsidiaries, Motmate, Quton and Cotpro all passed ISO recertification compliance audits.

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