Malawi ready for foreign investors – Mwanamvekha
Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism Joseph Mwanamvekha, Friday assured foreign investors to invest in the country as their business will be profitable and secured.
Mwanamvekha said this in Lilongwe during the 2017 Malawi-India Business Meet at Bingu International Convention Centre (BICC).
The meeting aimed to discuss how foreign investors can invest more in the country, the challenges they are experiencing and how government can come in for them to invest in infrastructure and other sectors.
“In the tourism sectors, the investors can invest at Nyika, Cape Maclear and some game reserves. In terms of energy we have Kholombizo and other specific areas where power can be produced, they can also invest in agro-processing and agriculture,” he explained.
Mwanamvekha however urged Indian business community in the county to produce enough, quality and affordable products that Malawians can be able to buy as one way of encouraging people to buy products that are manufactured in the country.
He added that Indian businesses are crucial to the economy of the country because they are the ones doing the manufacturing of products and trading of products and the country brought machines from them.
Mwanamvekha also said government has done a lot to make sure that foreign investors have no problems in doing their business by having one stop centre where they can process their documents, micro-economic environment in terms of interest and tax incentives for specific sectors for those who want to invest.
Speaking earlier, Minister of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining Bright Msaka said the energy sector must be the first sector to be considered before the country can succeed to another level.
“We have a clear plan on the unbundling of ESCOM to ensure that all independent power producers have one direction where they can sell their power so that they do not compete and ESCOM will not produce power, but buy,” said Msaka.
He added that recently ESCOM has advertised for independent power producers in the solar sector and there was huge interest and the bids have been evaluated. They have also procured 76 megawatts of power of diesel generators and another 46 on their own making it 120.
Msaka further said ESCOM has also bought 70 megawatts of solar power and recently they have also bought 1.2 million LD energy saver bulbs at 5 million US Dollar to save 40 megawatts.
He said within the two years the country is adding close to 250 megawatts with the American government to modernize and Upgrade Mkula A with addition of 12 megawatts and Japane awarded a contract to Mitsubish to do Temzani 4 with addition 18 megawatts.
Msaka then said his ministry wants to make sure that by the end of three years there is enough power supply in the country and the issue of blackout in the country becomes history.
He also emphasized that foreign investors on the energy sector should invest on one condition that the tariff is right to allow Malawians to have right all the time and be able to produce more products.
India High Commissioner to Malawi, Suresh Kummar Menon said Malawi government should come up with the sectors they want to invest and they should also involve the private sectors and India business community that are willing to come up with proposals to invest in the country as well.
He added that his country apart from investing in Energy are also interested in Health and Agriculture among others.
He added that the meeting is a follow up of the meeting they had in India and also to strengthen the bilateral relationship the two countries have.
Some of the investors interested in investing in the country include; Dalip Dua Managing Director Krishna Hydro and Om Energy, India on “Sustainable Development of Hydro Power, Intl Operation, Ashok Leyland, Eichor motors.
Follow and Subscribe Nyasa TV :
Ha!ha!ha! what a joke. Please government be serious, stand on one ground you have already destroyed our beloved country with the rate of corruption, maybe you have agreed with your so called investors that they will be allowed to abuse the system and steal as well? No sane investor will invest in a collapsed economy.
Investors would have to be mad or very philanthropic to come to Malawi: what with corruption continuing without restrictions, too many regulations, the government’s habit of overtaxing anything that looks like it may make a good profit, there is little encouragement for investors. Eliminate all corruption and investors will start to have faith.
How would they get their money back with all the stringent forex controls in place? Unless you assure them, they won’t. It is too risky investing foreign currency as capital in Malawi. Get if from me and many others who have invested so much using foreign currency. It is extremely hard to get the money back. If one tries to get the money back in the currency of their choice, they get hit with the stupid so called externalisation regulation. Absolute tosh economics.
BY THE WAY WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MEGA PROJECT THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE CONSTRUCTED AT CAPE MACLEAR! NO PROGRESS TODATE. DID GOVT REACH AN AMICABLE SOLUTION WITH THE LOCALS?
It is not Nkolombizo, but Nkolombidzo. Mwanamvekha prounced the word in a Lhomwe fashion, not Chichewa. Please journalists ask the correct spelling of a place from the people who live there – this is cheap journalism. If you are making a silly mistake with a local name how many times will you make mistakes with foreign names? The golden rule in journalism is “when in doubt ASK”, and do NOT assume. I will rule Gambia for a billion years.