Industrialisation, Business, Trade and Tourism Simon Itaye has said deepening trade relation with other African countries like Rwanda would increase Malawi’s trade outflows and create tangible investments.
He was speaking yesterday during a courtesy visit by Rwanda’s High Commissioner to Zambia who is also Non-Resident High Commissioner to Malawi, Emmanuel Bugingo.
Quoted on the ministry’s Facebook page, Itaye said trade windows with such economies as Rwanda would help spearhead regional integration, and hasten the realisation of the African Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) aspirations.
Both Malawi and Rwanda are member states of) which promises to be the largest free trade area connecting 55 African nations with a customer base of over 1.3 billion people and create a combined gross domestic product of $3.4 trillion.
The AfCFTA—the continent’s single biggest trading bloc—is among the African Union’s (AU) flagship projects for implementation of its ‘Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want,’ and is aimed at bringing together all the 55 member states of the AU in an intra-African continental free trade area.
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It would create a market of more than 1.3 billion people.
If fully implemented, the AfCFTA could leverage intra-African trade and increase trade among member states by up to 110 percent.
In addition, the AfCFTA could lift up to 30 million people out of extreme poverty and up to 68 million people out of moderate poverty.
Commenting, Bugingo said Rwanda shares a lot with Malawi and has enjoyed the good relationship the two nations have shared for ages, deepening trade relations would help the two countries grow their economies.
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Rwanda is a leader in ICT development in Africa and also among top ranking countries in Africa in the area of Trade in Services, Tourism, Sports and World Class Conferencing.
Rwanda is already reaping fruits from operationalization of Special Economic Zones, an intervention Malawi can benefit from as she lays foundations for her own Special Economic Zones as a way of speeding up and scaling out her industrialization dream.
