By Dumbani Mzale, contributor, in Changsha, China:
Minister of Trade Simplex Chithyola Banda has said the third China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo (Caete) presents a huge opportunity for Malawi to tackle her growing gap between imports and exports.
Malawi is participating at the international exhibition which is slated to take place between June 29 and July 2, 2023 in Furong District, Hunan Province, Changsha City in the Asian country.
President Lazarus Chakwera has been invited by his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping as a special guest of honour who will speak on behalf of Africa heads of State and Governments when he delivers his keynote address.
Speaking yesterday on the sidelines of the preparations of the event, Chithyola described the event as “historic and very important” to Malawi as the country is also at the height of trying to look for new partners that can off-take most of the locally-produced commodities as a way of expanding the export base.
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“We have taken the opportunity of this third Caete to expose to China most of the value chains that we have in Malawi, in addition to soya beans. So, this is an opportunity for a country because we will definitely have new buyers on the market after this expo,” said the minister.
Chithyola Banda, however, lamented that predominantly, most of Malawi markets have been within the Africa region since time immemorial, but quickly pointed out that his ministry, with joint efforts by other relevant ministries, departments and agencies, are now going beyond the African region, citing China, India and other strategic markets for Malawian products.
The minister has stated that immediately after being appointed, he hit the ground running in order to explore new strategies, while trying to reduce the gap between imports and exports, and tackle the glaring trade imbalance.
He said the current spate of economic challenges gripping Malawi are emanating from Malawi’s inability to export more on the international market, adding that the situation is impacting heavily on other key macroeconomic indicators such as inflation and indeed foreign exchange availability.
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Providing solution, Chithyola said so far, government has come up with a Customs Controlled Warehousing System, which he said will be key in tracking both the volume of the exports, as well as the value accrued from the proceeds of those exports, to the international market.
“To address the two, we have collaborated with the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Trade and also the Ministry of Agriculture, Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) and Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM). So if exporter A is exporting 20 kilogram to Tanzania, for argument’s sake, that information is already with MRA through Customs Controlled Warehousing, and the same information is with RBM because it is declared under CD1 forms. This, therefore, gives us a chance to ease monitoring and tracking of exports and also export proceeds,” he added.
Last month, Chinese Ambassador to Malawi Long Zhou acknowledged that over the past three years, the Chakwera government has made progress to increase the number of exports that go into the Chinese market, stressing that during the period under review, several deals have been negotiated and agreed.
Under the umbrella theme of “Common Development for a Shared Future,” the expo is expected to delve into key areas and emerging fields of China- Africa economic and trade cooperation, during which there will be 30 activities in five categories of major activities, high-end forums, matchmaking and negotiation, thematic seminars and other supporting activities.
A 2023 Malawi government Annual Economic Report shows that the trade deficit improved from $2.07 billion in 2021 to $564.41 million in 2022, representing a 68 percent improvement.
