New York, September 26, 2014, Mana: Malawi and Kenya have renewed their commitment to strengthening their bilateral cooperation in various areas of development.
This was revealed during a meeting the Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta had with his Malawian counterpart, President Prof Peter Mutharika at Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on Thursday.
“We have basically talked about the long standing relationships between Kenya and Malawi that stem back all the way from the struggle for independence and how we have cooperated as two friendly and sister countries since then in all areas and sectors.
“Myself and my brother have always reiterated the need for our partnership to continue by increasing people to people contact in a number of areas of cooperation,” said Kanyatta.
Kenyatta said he has agreed with his Malawian counterpart to support one another in terms of public sector reforms, military cooperation and the need for Kenya and Malawi to deepen trade relations between them.
Said Kenyatta; “We believe, as my brother has said, that it is important for us to recognize the philosophy that before we go to buy from outside our continent, we need first of all to look at how we can trade within ourselves as COMESA and how we can strengthen the partnership between our three blocks namely the East African Community, Sadc and Comesa so that we can increase trade flows within our region.
“We have agreed that your foreign minister will be coming to Kenya in October to further hasten the various agreements that we have discussed and I look forward to visiting my brother in Malawi in the very near future so that we witness the signing of the various agreements that we have agreed here to further strengthen the partnership that is already cordial and good.”
In his remarks, the Malawi President Prof Peter Mutharika said he has had a very fruitful meeting with his Kenyan counterpart as it tackled a number of areas of development.
“We talked about various areas of cooperation that included science and technology and the civil service reform programme. The Malawian Civil Service Commission has already been to Kenya to try to learn more from our Kenyan counterparts in the areas of civil service reform and public procurement.
“We also talked about the possibility to have auction holdings in Nairobi to look at marketing our commodities in Kenya and possibilities of having Tea Auction Floors in Mombasa besides talking about cooperation in general.
“Another area we discussed was about our senior officers in the army as you know that they are trained in Kenya so I asked my brother here if we could expand that. The basic training is of course done in Malawi but senior trainings are done in Kenya.
Mutharika disclosed he had also tackled other areas of cooperation with his Kenyan counterpart that included agriculture, health and education among others.
