Posted on January, 18, 2019 at 09:38 am
The Malawi Investment and Trade Centre has recorded investment pledges worth $1.4bn for the year 2018 Nyasa Times understands.
According to MITC spokesperson Deliby Chimbalu these investment pledges are from 105 companies that have been issued with investment certificates from the Centre.
Speaking in an interview with <em>Nyasa Times</em> in Lilongwe, Chimbalu said Malawi is proving its mettle as a preffered destination in this part of the region as an investment destination.
She said: “For the year 2018 we have recorded $ 1,498,190,127.15 investment pledges from the various business projects that we have approved for the 105 companies that have been issued with investment certificates. This is a big jump from what we recorded in 2017 where we managed to get about $400 million investment projects from 42 companies.”
Chimbalu added that this increase in the figures can be attributed to a number of factors, “ one of them being that in 2018 we received business projects in the energy sector which usually is a capital intensive sector. The 9 projects that we received from this sector alone accounts for almost 52% of the total investment pledges for the year 2018.”
According to a statement from MITC seen by Nyasa Times the second largest sector in terms of value is the Agriculture and Agro-processing. This has a total of 20 projects and accounts for almost 23% of the total value of the investment pledges.
As a One Stop Service Centre for investment registration and facilitation, MITC is the first point of contact for both Foreign and Domestic investment.
The companies that have been recorded in 2018 are new entities while some are existing and they are expanding their investment levels in Malawi. The sectors that these companies will be operating range from manufacturing, tourism, services, agriculture, energy to mining.
It is expected that once they start their operations they will create about 16728 employment opportunities.
Minister of Trade Francis Kasaila is on record to have said that government will continue to formulate policies that will make Malawi a favourable destination for investors.
Source: Nyasa Times