Mwanamvekha upbeat on IMF K83.1bn Malawi package

Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Joseph Mwanamvekha who is in Washington DC , United States of America  says he has had “successful” meeting with International Monetary Fund (IMF) and expressed the hope that IMF Executive Board  will on November 22 approve new  tranches of  Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme worth $112.3 million (about K83.1 billion) for three-years.

Mwanamveka said the ECF programme for Malawi is “on track.”

Said Mwanamvekha:  I must say that the IMF has agreed that they will be submitting to their Executive Board on the 22 November [2019] their recommendations to the Board.”

The minister said the delegation expects the meeting by the IMF Executive Board to approve the release of more resources for Malawi comprising tranches from the second and third review to support rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai and also to preserve macroeconomic stability for Malawi.

Mwanamvekha also said the Malawi delegation has appealed to the IMF Executive Board to ensure that the resources that the country taps from the Fund is “quite small” let alone unpredictable, adding that Malawi also expected more resources from the Fund for augmentation to mitigate the impact of Cyclone Idai.

“So, we are asking through our executive director that as much as the economy is doing very well, we need to consolidate the gains that have been achieved to date,” he said.

The meeting of the IMF Executive Board follows a series of other recent meetings by the IMF team led by Pritha Mitra who is IMF Mission Chief for Malawi and Malawi Government officials whose preliminary outcome showed that Malawi’s economic performance was favourable despite the impact of the devastating Cyclone Idai which hit the country earlier this year.

During the September review, IMF highlighted that economic growth is expected to strengthen to about 4.5 percent in 2019, supported by a rebound in agriculture in most parts of the country as well as on account of reconstruction of infrastructure that was damaged by Cyclone Idai, especially in the Southern Region.

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