A coalition of five Southern African countries met recently in Malawi to discuss ways to address the growing global anti-tobacco lobby which is imposing tighter regulations and heavy taxes on the golden leaf, a major source of export earnings for the countries.
Most of the countries under the T5 coalition are increasingly finding it difficult to battle the anti-lobby campaign which are calling for the imposition of tighter regulations and heavy taxes on their tobacco industries - which are a major source of foreign currency and major employer.
Anti-tobacco regulations are tightening over public-place smoking, point-of-sale communication and display, graphic health warnings and plain packaging among other restrictions.
The tobacco industry is a complex web with various competing interest of both African and global multinational corporations. Multinationals still earn billions from tobacco produced by African countries.