President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika has urged the private sector to emulate Mapeto David Whitehead and Sons-DWS Limited by making huge local investments, further assuring them of government’s support.
Mutharika made the remarks Friday morning during the commissioning of new high-tech weaving looms at Mapeto DWS headquarters, Makata Industrial Site in Blantyre.
He said it was encouraging that the company continued to make investments in value addition of locally grown cotton as shown by their modernization efforts in the acquisition of new machinery for printing, dyeing, boilers, water recycling and weaving.
Mutharika noted that such efforts were supportive of his government’s agenda on industry and trade which sought to promote manufacturing, value addition and diversification from the traditional foreign exchange earners such as tobacco, tea, coffee and sugar to other products such as cotton and cotton products.
“These efforts are also crucial for employment creation, foreign exchange generation thereby uplifting the lives of the majority of Malawians in the country,” said Mutharika.
According to Mutharika, government was aware of the numerous challenges the manufacturing sector encounters like inadequate energy and water supply for industrial use, high cost of borrowing, influx of cheap smuggled products, and the high transportation costs.
He however assured players in the sector that government was creating a favorable and conducive environment by undertaking the different measures.
For instance, Mutharika said government was strengthening capacity of the Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA), the Malawi Police Service (MPS), the Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) and all other border agencies to deal with smuggling.
“My government is also increasing power generation capacity by among others initiatives encouraging the participation of the private sector in the energy generation and diversifying to other sources including solar and thermo; embarking on increasing the capacity of Mudi Dam in order to increase water supply; and upgrading the roads and our railway lines as well as embarking on the establishment of the Shire Zambezi Water Way in order to reduce the transportation costs,” outlined Mutharika.
Mutharika then reminded the nation that Malawi was a signatory of the Tripartite Free Trade Area comprising COMESA, the East African Community (EAC) and SADC, associations he said offer a greater export market opportunity for most products.
“In addition, Malawi has a non-reciprocal market access opportunity under the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) which include duty free and quota free market access. I would therefore like to encourage Mapeto and other manufacturing companies to take advantage of these available opportunities,” he said.
Chairman of Mapeto, Faiza Latif hailed the President for launching the new weaving looms.
“Once this phase is complete with more looms, we intend to overhaul our entire spinning plant to compliment the looms installed. We also want to invest in toweling, cotton wool and bandage production equipment,” he said.
General Manager Martin Mpata urged government to consider employing trade remedies, wherever appropriate, to level the playing field between foreign trade and the country’s domestic trade so as to ensure that domestic producers and employment are protected from the unfair trade, unfair competition or potentially damaging surges.
“This will in turn, save and create employment in the country that will also see the improvement of many families,” said the overly optimistic Mpata.
