British High Commissioner to Malawi Fiona Ritchie has told local businesses to utilise and embrace the United Kingdom (UK)’s new trading scheme announced last month among new post-Brexit trading rules.
The Developing Countries Trading Scheme cuts tariffs on products entering into the UK from 65 developing countries and will help reduce imports costs and simplify trading rules.
UK High Commissioner to Malawi Fiona Ritchie said the new rules have been effected on June 19.
She said the new rules are based on preferential arrangement and are aimed at helping countries such as Malawi send more exports to the country.
“I would like to encourage Malawian businesses to make use of it because trade is one area of focus for the UK and we are looking at making it easier for Malawi to export and we have started our value chain component under this arrangement, which aims at ironing out obstacles that are faced when exporting to the UK,” Ritchie said.
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Minister of Trade and Industry Simplex Chithyola Banda said the move will help in growing the country’s private sector, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), by offering the much needed markets.
“While this is a good opportunity, it depends on how ready the nation is and this is why I talk of full involvement of the SMEs and local industries so that we can be producing more. We also need to add value to our products to increase earnings,” Banda said.
The UK is one of Malawi’s key trading partners.
