President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has complained that the desire among Malawians to import goods from foreign countries is undermining government efforts to grow the economy.
Chakwera said this on Wednesday when he opened a trade fair in Blantyre. The trade fair is an annual event being organized by the Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCCI) in collaboration with Malawi Investment and Trade Centre (MITC).
In his speech at the opening of this year’s exhibition, President Chakwera complained about the practice of importing goods from abroad without selling the country’s goods abroad sufficiently, which he said is undermining the country’s economy.
“So, every businessperson must know that if you buy or order more goods than you are selling, your business goes down. So, if we take Malawi as a business, then our business has been going down for a long time because we are buying more goods than what we are selling. For example, in March last year, imports exceeded exports with a level of 177.7 million dollars, while in the same month this year the level increased to 194.4 million dollars, showing that the problem is still serious,” he said.
Chakwera also criticized the tendency by some local businesspeople to get foreign currency to buy foreign goods without replenishing the foreign currency by selling goods to foreign countries.
He said this is what his government has been working hard to change.
“One of the things that we are trying to change is to increase the amount of agricultural products that we sell through the large Mega Farms and to promote irrigation, because one of the things that has been driving down the agricultural trade is to insist on farming that waits for the rains and plowing, which cannot be done due to climate change. And those that only produce a small amount of food. That’s why this week, I launched a program to help farmers get tractors, and it’s also because we’re launching irrigated agriculture schemes in all provinces,” he said.
President Chakwera said the purpose of commercial agriculture is to increase the country’s exports so that farmers can benefit.
He dismissed assertions by some people that agriculture is not lucrative in Malawi, citing tobacco farmers who this year are earning good prices at the market because the government is fighting for them to sell their tobacco at a better price than before.
“And you businessmen who are buying this tobacco, I thank you for encouraging the agricultural business to continue to be hot, and I also thank the owners of the farmers for working hard and following the advice of modern agriculture.
“It is only a matter of time before what is happening in the tobacco farming business is extended to the business of growing other seeds that we want to help you sell to other countries. The benefits of this are already happening and the results are already being seen. But in order for this to change the economy of the country, we the government and you in the private sector have to join hands to speed things up together. And we, the government, are ready to develop businesses and give them the ability to sell their goods to other countries. And for business development and access to foreign markets, we are not only developing agricultural businesses, because the vision of increasing the economy in this country cannot be achieved by agriculture alone,” Chakwera emphasized.
Meanwhile, Chakwera has encouraged businessmen to take advantage of the opportunities this country offers through the opening of markets through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as well as China.
