Balaka farmers to benefit from K5bn cotton ginnery
Over 40 000 cotton farmers from the Eastern Region and Neno are set to benefit from the K5 billion (about $7.2million) cotton ginnery in Balaka to be officially opened on Monday.
The ginnery, to be operated by Agriculture Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) was built by Apollo International Limited of India.
It is part of the $50 million (about K33 billion)Indian line of credit (LoC) whose construction started in 2012.
Admarc chief executive officer Foster Mulumbe said yesterday the ginnery is a significant project as it will help promote cotton growing in Malawi which is another forex earner.
“We are hoping that with the increased cotton production, we should have the potential to replace tobacco as the major forex earner.
“We have employed over 100 people under Admarc who will be working in two or three shifts to increase efficiency of the ginnery,” he said.
Mulumbe said currently, the ginnery has a capacity to process 50 000 metric tonnes of cotton lint.
Other ginneries with the same LoC are in Ngabu in Chikwawa and Ngala in Karonga. n
