Trade & Economy - Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry

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Trade & Economy

Trade in Malawi is liberalized with import and export license only required for very few products that have a bearing on security, health, food self-sufficiency, and the preservation of infant industries.

Malawi is a member of COMESA (Common Market For Eastern and Southern Africa); SADC (Southern African Development Community) ACP/SU Cotonou Agreement and the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as a beneficiary of the African Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA) and Everything But Arms (EBA) Agreement. Bilateral Agreements exist with South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. Further agreements are currently under consideration with Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique. These, alongside other initiatives such as the Growth Triangle and Spatial Development Initiative, offer considerable opportunities for increasing trade and investment in the region and stimulating growth.

The following are the Malawi Government's principal policies for encouraging and assisting private investment:

The Government is fully committed to enacting these policies and will take whatever measures may be necessary to ensure their prompt implementation
The statement is supplemented by the Investors Guide containing detailed information of importance to investors
The Government seeks to encourage the private sector to assume the leading role in developing the national economy
The thrust of the Government’s efforts will be to facilitate rather than regulate private investment. This is consistent with the Statement of Development Policies issued by the Government in 1987
To create a more conducive investment climate, the Government will continue to pursue stable macro economic policies by exercising fiscal and monetary discipline and maintaining a realistic exchange rate of Malawi Kwacha (MK), the country’s currency
Specific measures to deregulate the private sector and create new investment opportunities have already been enacted, including the elimination of price controls, the termination of import restrictions and of the accompanying import licenses, divestiture of state-owned companies and steps to rectify the external transport situation

The Vision of Malawi is that "By 2020, Malawi as God fearing nation, will be secure, democratically mature, environmentally sustainable, self reliant with equal opportunities for and active participation by all, having social services, vibrant culture and religious values and technically driven middle-income country".

To operationalise the Vision, the Government in the medium term has come up with a medium term development strategy called The Malawi Growth and Development Strategy

Source: Malawi Investment Promotion Agency (MIPA)


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