By Kingsley Jassi:
Legislators on Wednesday took to task officials from the Ministry of Industry and Trade on Malawi’s low utilisation of trade facilities, as the country struggles with macroeconomic imbalances emanating from low exports.
The country’s export performance has not recovered the 2011 fall to $1.71 billion, reaching the lowest in 2020 at $770 million before crawling to around $1 billion in 2023.
With the import bill at over $3 billion last year, the growing trade deficits have caused macroeconomic imbalances characterized by forex shortage that puts pressure on the Kwacha and inflation, culminating in a host of problems.
Led by Principal Secretary Christina Zakeyu, the officials, who also included Chief Executive Officer of Malawi Investment and Trade Centre (MITC) Paul Kwengwere, were called to face the Parliamentary committee on International Relations on Wednesday where concerns on low investment, production and exports were raised.
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Chaired by Leonard Mwalwanda, the members also wanted to know the performance of Buy Malawi Initiative, the impact of mega farms initiative, forex repatriation compliance, among several other issues.
Kasungu Central MP, Ken Kandondo, who is former Finance Minister said the continued exportation of raw materials works against Malawi on international trade.
But in her presentation Zakeyu said there were some strides her Ministry achieved in securing trade instruments, finding markets and having a legal framework to support the country’s private sector.
“To optimize Malawi’s participation in the multilateral trade system, and boost utilisation of the available market access opportunities, it is important for Malawi to scale up its productive capacity, increase value addition to reduce dependence on raw commodity exports, and enhance compliance with international standards and technical requirements,” said Zakeyu in a presentation.
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On deployment of trade attachees, the ministry said about 10 were assigned to countries with trade and investment potential but admitted a mixed performance on utilization of preferential trade facilities.
Malawi’s exports to EU were $368.7 million against imports worth $372.1 million while with the US under AGOA facility, the country exported goods and services worth $44.6 million and imported $18.2 million items.
