Malawi ponders on leather policy

The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Institute (SMEDI) says it will initiate the formulation of a leather policy for Malawi to help in the regulation of leather exports in the country.

SMEDI Chief Executive Officer, Charles Kazembe, said in an interview that Malawi needs a policy on the leather industry to look into the market and provide clear guidelines to be followed before export.

“The policy will provide proper regulation of hides and skins. We want to look at the core value chain such as abattoirs, the canaries up to the user of the product,” said Kazembe

Kazembe also disclosed that SMEDI intends to create a data base of all mining operators to form a strong association that will enable his institution and government to intervene in their affairs holistically.

He said the formation of the association and accompanying policies will enable the operators to have a strong bargaining power for certain services from their clients and stakeholders.

“This is one of the most important sectors in our economy and the good thing is that government has a special interest in it. There is need to properly strategise and make it well coordinated so that more revenue can be realised from this,” said Kazembe.

“We already have niobium and gemstone associations but we know there are more,” said Kazembe

Kazembe said the exercise of enacting the said policies will be rolled out once the institution has completed review of its strategic plan which he said is at an advanced stage.

He said the reviewed strategy will enable SMEDI focus its operations which at the moment is not clear as an institution that was formed from a merger of three other institutions.