Three pharmaceutical companies in Zimbabwe have started manufacturing cannabis medicines, SABC News reports. The approval by the Medicines Control Association of Zimbabwe comes five years after the country licensed 60 cannabis farmers.
Zimbabwe Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube expects the nation could see $1 billion from cannabis, expecting the market to outpace tobacco, which is currently its top agricultural export, according to Reuters. Zimbabwe officials, in 2019, said they hoped cannabis and hemp would boost the nation’s export market and foreign currency earnings.
In 2021, Zimbabwe exported 30 tons of industrial hemp products to Switzerland.
The nation’s medical cannabis legalization was partly due to economic factors and officials hoped the move would attract investors to Special Economic Zones, which offer investor incentives, including exemption from portions of the labor laws and black economic empowerment rules. They were established in Harare, Victoria Falls, and Bulawayo.
Officials approved the first medical cannabis sales in 2022. In May of that year, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa commissioned a $27 million medical cannabis farm and processing plant to be run by Swiss Bioceuticals Limited in West Province, according to a High Times report.
Mnangagwa has urged investors to “follow [Swiss Bioceuticals Limited’s] lead and open their business to support the mantra that ‘Zimbabwe is Open for Business’ and be ready to generate foreign currency generation for the country.”
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