Exporting forex

While Malawi is struggling to find alternative foreign exchange earners to tobacco, hundreds of millions dollars’ worth of legumes and grain produced in the country continue to cross the borders without their earnings being accounted for due to lack of regulated structured markets for such crops in the country.

AHL Commodities Exchange (AHCX) estimates that Malawi loses around $500 million through unregulated exports of crops such as maize, soya, pigeon peas, groundnuts, rice and others.

The pictures show Tanzania-registered trucks busy loading groundnuts for Burundians at Lilongwe’s Mgona township destined for Kenya and other east African countries. Other export hubs for the groundnuts are also thriving at Mchesi and Chinsapo in Lilongwe