Mutharika tips agriculture as key to Malawi’s economic growth
Malawi’s economy can only be fortified if enough focus is put on agriculture by turning it into a fully-fledged business institution thereby spurring the country’s export base, says President Arthur Peter Mutharika.
He was speaking on Thursday in Mangochi when he officially opened this year’s Economics Association of Malawi (ECAMA) annual general conference held under the theme “Agricultural Transformation and Value Chain Development for Sustainable Economic Growth”.
“Your choice of the theme of the conference could not have been better. Agriculture remains the anchor of our economy for the moment. It is the one economic sector in which every Malawian can participate,” he said.
He further highlighted the need for value addition as a crucial aspect of economic growth.
“We should empower our people by adding value to the produce of their labour. With value addition, we are certain to turn Malawi into a predominantly producing and exporting economy,” said the President.
The Malawi leader refused to be downcast with what others call economic problems, rather he offered a positive forecast in relation to annual trends.
“The economic situation is not worsening, and must not be allowed to get worse. The fundamentals of the economy are stronger today than they were 12 months ago. Certainly, headline inflation is high granted the 24.1 percent as at September 2015; yes, 1.1 percent higher than the previous month.”
“But, this is only 0.4percent higher than the same period last year. If you look at the numbers closely, on a year-on-year basis, it is the food inflation which is hitting us so hard now,” he said hence vindicating his earlier sentiments calling for an industrialized and fully-commercialized agricultural sector.
He then advised ECAMA to continue playing a positive advisory role on economic issues for Malawians to benefit from association’s services.
ECAMA is a forum of economists in Malawi and other interested parties that analyse economic-related issues and provide evidence-based policy advice that aims at improving economic management.
It was formally launched in 1999 as a voluntary membership organisation comprising a pool of professional economists from across the country and abroad.
Follow and Subscribe Nyasa TV :
Baziloni,
You are very right, who ever you are…
Actually the key to our economic growth is increased and reliable electricity generation because electricity is a cross cutting issue. Big scale irrigation projects cannot exist without reliable electricity; mining needs electricity (remember that we need to increase mining from single digit % of GDP to 30%); education – another acknowledged mainstay of development – needs reliable electricity; communication and information – the internet – needs reliable electricity; the health sector needs reliable electricity. If APM wants to leave any legacy, apart from his frequent mapwevupwevu, he should really focus on increasing electricity generation – whether from coal, diesel, solar,… Read more »
Am not an economist neither dd i pass Form 4 but i know for sure that the only way for Malawi to grow economically is through agriculture(production)micro economically then its the OVOP thing then government should challenge all multi national shops to stock 50% of our own agriculture products to cut on forex. then through time the cooperatives running OVOPs will demand from local farmers the best of everything nde muwone kupiskisana alimi tizapha ndalama and give the market international quality products. the green belt needs to be financed i thinks if we can stop borrowing and just borrow this… Read more »
Agriculture can not be the backbone of our economy as long as we are using a hoe to till the soil. We need to mordernize Mathanyula!!!!!
Come on mr president. Why tip agriculture to rescue our economy? You mean you didn’t know that agriculture has always been the backbone of our economy?
Why tell us the obvious? Eh ine ndadabwa!!
why 95% of coferences are held in Mangochi? do you mean you can not do in Lilongwe to cut expenses like fuel . Just imagine a person from chitipa. Or yougo there for mapwhefuphwefu
Since the onset of multiparty politics Malawi has been producing very little. I remember there was a time when tomotoes were being imported from Tanzania and eggs and chickens from Zimbabwe. Yet Malawi has had a full college of Agriculture, now a University. The problem is that organizers of programs write speaches for presidents as such the thoughts the president shared may nor have originated from Government but Ecama. That is the problem we have. During the one party era estates were the order of the day. They contributed alot to exports. Many of such farms are idle and many… Read more »
Brilliant ideas, but no action. Easier said than done. Shame on us
ESCOM is subjecting residents of Area 47 to 10hours of blackouts everyday! I’ll not be surprised if they switch off for 24hrs bcoz the residents r docile. March to ESCOM and protest, the maximum they can switch off should b 2hours during the day or night but certainly not 10 hours!
Jah jah jah
Goodluck with that! People can’t even afford a simple bag of seedlings, let alone fertiliser!