EU

amp-geo layout="nodisplay" You must add the attribute data-block-on-consent to any existing amp-ad components on the page as indicated below:

Thursday, March 28, 2019


Mkango receives £7mln triggered investment from Talaxi

Mkango Resources Ltd (LON:MKA) has received £7mln from Talaxis to fund the completion of the feasibility study for the Songwe Hill rare-earths project.
The cash infusion was triggered by the publication of a NI 43-101 technical report resource update a week ago

Tuesday, March 26, 2019


EIU upbeat on economy, outlines possible risks


The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has said this year’s expected recovery in the agricultural sector and a relatively high level of government spending will lift economic growth to 4.1 percent, with the rate expected to fall in 2020.
In its March 2019 Country Analysis, the EIU, a British business unit within the Economist Group providing forecasting and advisory services through research and analysis, says it expects an average annual growth rate of 4.3 percent between 2021 and 2022

Saturday, March 16, 2019

IMF Predicts 5 per cent growth for Malawi



LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday predicted that Malawi’s economy –Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would go up by 5 percent this year owing to an expected bumper yield and improvement in electricity supply.
IMF Mission Chief for Malawi, Pritha Mitra jointly with Minister of Finance, Goodall Gondwe revealed the development to journalists in the capital Lilongwe at the end of the second review of the three-year Extended Credit Facility support programme.
This comes a few days after IMF predicted that the Malawi economy would grow by 4.1 percent.

Mitra said the economic outlook was favourable, with a likelihood of continued growth in the short to medium terms.

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Blantyre to Have State of Art Research Centre W Tuesday, 12 March 2019 14:37

/malawi-national-news/blantyre-to-have-state-of-art-research-centre

 font size decrease font size increase font size Print Email Be the first to comment! Rate this item 1 2 3 4 5 (0 votes) Local and international health experts expect improved health research services in Malawi once construction of a £7 million (K6.7 billion) of State of Art Research Centre in Blantyre is completed. Malawi Liverpool Welcome Trust Program Director, Professor Stephen Gordon, said construction of a new Clinical Research Excellence and Training Open Resource (CREATOR) building will be completed in 2021. Gordon has described the initiative as game changer for medicine and science in Malawi, adding that it will attain a 30 percent increase in clinical research activity and post graduate specialist clinical education. “We have been planning the CREATOR project for three years as a partnership with QUECH, CoM and external partners in the UK. The launch is very exciting as we see senior leadership from Liverpool and Malawi committing to making this project a reality,” said Gordon.

Sunday, March 10, 2019

MW contribution to Agoa static


Malawi’s contribution to the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) in the past two years has remained static at 0.15 percent global share in the trade act, which has 164 members.
According to the 2019 Trade Policy Agenda and 2018 Annual Report of the President of the United States on the Trade Agreements Programme Office, this is also the trade act’s minimum contribution.

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Our Guest Comment: Mismanaging Large Scale Projects in Malawi


Whoever wins the election this year, one critical issue they must attend to is the mismanagement of large-scale projects in Malawi. Large scale projects have huge implications for the country’s economic development. One major argument for many big projects is that they have “spillover effects” that can be exploited for further development. Such effects can be through backward linkages (e.. Kayelekera project purchasing food from local communities or electricity from ESCOM) or forward linkages as inputs to other activities. Malawi has been singularly inept in exploiting these “externalities” of big projects. Take the following four projects

The first project was the Kayelekera mine. The Malawi government, through ESCOM, failed to provide electricity to the mine, forcing the company to use diesel which made Malawi a high-cost investment site. When uranium prices were around 170 US dollars per pound, the project was quite profitable even at unit costs twice as high as the global average. When the prices collapsed the project became unviable. However, the main point here is that the government failed to be of much use to the country's first major mining activity. As for the future of mining, the government seems totally unaware that it can influence the decision to re-open the mine by reducing some of the production costs such as electricity or it can speed up some planned projects by providing infrastructural.
The second project is the railway line to Nacala. This project is truly a bonanza brought about by the strategic location of Malawi for Zambia and Mozambique. However, to fully benefit from the project, Malawi would have to facilitate the handling of goods destined for Malawi and Zambia through the creation of a dry port at Liwonde with its excellent links to water and road transport. The Nacala project, initiated in 2010, was completed in May 2017. Malawi had enough time to build a dry port. However, it was only in In 2016 that Mota Engil signed a concession agreement with the Malawi government to develop a dry port at Liwonde under a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) arrangement. Mota Engil would invest US$250 million in the dry port and other ancillary facilities Early this year,  the President reported that the government will be spending $600 million on the dry port without explaining what happened to the Mota Engil projects. And so two years after the completion of the railway there are signs of a port.
The third case is the US (MCA) funded electricity grid project. The project was started in 2013 and complete in September 2018. To make use of this fantastic addition to the country’s energy sector, there had to be electricity to transport. As we write, Malawi is barely producing enough electricity for 7 percent of those that are connected. Thus, because of our failure to connect in time to the Cabora Bassa dam,  Malawi obtained a World Bank for the project in 1998. 10 years we have yet to embark on the feasibility study for the project. Another case is Kammwamba a coal power plant which, once again, has suffered from simply incomprehensible delays. The agreement for the project was reached under the Joyce Banda regime. but it took the Malawi government 4 years to enter into arrangements with the Chinese A project which would have been completed by now will only be ready 2012.
The -fourth project is the Salima-Lilongwe water project. First, there were questions about the tender. Then the Minister of Finance told us to wait as he checked with the IMF (who else?). Then he said he had received permission to proceed and that they had already paid the company some money. And since then there is silence and time is ticking. At the current pace,   we are heading towards a disastrous situation for water supplies to Lilongwe especially since the World Bank has pulled out of its own water supply project for Lilongwe.
Together these projects imply the mismanagement of US1.5 billion. The question that immediately arises is what lies behind such mismanagement? For the Kayelekera project, some have suggested pure regionalism – the project was in the North. For the dry port, a similar argument has been raised. This is UDF territory. As for electricity. The interconnectivity project was blocked by DPP and it seems the DPP took some time to accept the Kammwamba Coal power electricity project, which was Joyce Banda’s baby. Some have suggested that both the dry port and the electricity project have been undermined by the powerful fuel haulage’s lobby. Another persuasive argument is that these projects have left little room for personal gains. It also seems we have marginalized our national technocrats from these projects, with the implication that the learning process has been undermined.
Whatever is the true explanation, the blame for the failure to fully realise the benefits of these projects must be squarely placed on the highest level of government, at least as high as the Minister of Finance and Planning and the specialised ministry who have seemed so subdued and clueless that they too never seemed to mind. No one seems responsible for the implementation or exploitation of such large projects. Our Ministry of Finance is so focused on financial matters, especially those related to the IMF, that the ministry pays little attention to the real economy. At a lower level, the appointment of obviously incompetent and inexperienced officials into positions of overseeing the relevant Ministries or parastatals adds to the disastrous failure to exploit obvious opportunities.
Finally, it surprising how little political attention these projects. Parties in power have tended to view projects as their and the opposition has simply not cared. Our NGOs, busy with SMEs and “pro-poor’ have also ignored these projects as they have not understood that these mega-projects matter for the future of the country and the well-being of the poor.

Sunday, March 3, 2019

Salima-Water Project in Limbo

Prospects of finding a solution to the anticipated water woes of Lilongwe City are looking dim after a contract government signed with a financier of the K400 billion Lilongwe-Salima Waterway Project fell off.
Government, according to Finance and Economic Planning Minister Goodall Gondwe, did not agree with some terms in the signed contract and had to withdraw.