The Government of Malawi is committed to putting the development of the private sector at the heart of Malawi's national development strategy. Malawi is fundamentally an open, liberal and lightly regulated economy which is welcoming to investors.

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

The government's new medium-term development strategy is built around the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy. This strategy fully recognises that creating a healthy enabling environment for private sector development is a pre-requisite for sustainable economic and social development.

At the implementation level, working closely with stakeholders in the private sector, the Ministry of Trade and Private Sector Development is leading efforts to implement a National Export Strategy and a Private Sector Development Strategy. The National Export Strategy aims at highlighting export issues as development issues and target improved export volumes and value addition in six key sub-sectors: namely, cotton (and the development of an integrated cotton to textiles to garments value chain), food and agro-processing, handicrafts, tourism, other services and mining.

In addition, the Private Sector Development Strategy aims at addressing the cross-cutting constraints to doing business in Malawi and will tackle thematic areas such as credit and finance, skills and productivity, investment and technology, licensing and taxation, among others.

Trade in Malawi is fundamentally liberalised with import and export licences only required for very few products that have a bearing on security, health and food security.

The Malawi government recognises the important role Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) plays in the economic growth and development of any country. In the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy, the need to create an enabling environment for attracting FDI has been highlighted in an effort to stimulate private sector driven growth and poverty reduction. The Ministry of Trade and Private Sector Development in collaboration with other trade and investment related institutions attaches the highest importance to ensuring that an environment is set for the effective operation of the private sector through the provision of proper infrastructures, tax incentives and market access.

To this the Malawi Investment Promotion Agency (MIPA) was established in 1991 with a mandate to promote, attract, encourage and support investment in Malawi. Through MIPA, investors can access both general incentives and export incentives, including Export Processing Zones (EPZ) status. MIPA acts as Malawi's "one-stop-shop" for investment and aims at providing the highest quality of services to those seeking to invest in Malawi.

Furthermore, Malawi has a stable political environment; a friendly, kind and well trained hard working English speaking people; and a liberalised economy where companies can operate and access opportunities without government interference. Government policy aims to facilitate, rather than regulate private investment.

Dr. K. LIPENGA (MP)
Minister for Trade and Private Sector Development