India to set up K750m business incubation centre
Indian Government has said it will construct a $1 million (K750 million) multi million business incubation centre at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar) in Lilongwe.
Indian High Commissioner to Malawi Suresh Kumar Menon said last week the centre will help Malawi to improve on value addition to its agricultural produce before exporting to international markets.
He said this in Lilongwe on the sidelines of a $1 million cheque presentation in humanitarian assistance to Malawi.
by an Indian Line of Credit (LoC)
Menon said without adding value to its agriculture produce Malawi is losing out as the its exports fetches less prices because they are exported raw.
“Next month, two delegations are coming from India to Malawi, one for discussing the setting up of the Business Incubation Centre and the other for setting up of the India-Africa Institute for Rural Development at Bunda Campus.
“These two projects have been on the drawing board stage for almost two years, but have gained considerable momentum in the last few months. The institute that at Luanar is going to be of international standards with a Pan African reach, as it is mandated to host trainees from other African countries to train in Agricultural and other related areas,” he said.
On his part, Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development, Goodall Gondwe Malawi needs business incubation centre for it to grow its agriculture sector and create jobs.
“I have been to India so many times and I am always amazed to see how the country is developing so fast. Not many years ago, India was a poor and developing country like Malawi, but today it is competing with the giant economies. What this means is that with discipline and hard work you can achieve a lot in life,” said Gondwe.
Gondwe said apart from the upcoming incubation centre, India has invested in Malawi over $50 million on several projects including the construction of a sugar factory, cotton ginneries and fuel reserves.
Luanar vice-chancellor Professor Kanyama Phiri said the project is long overdue because Malawi needs to teach a lot of farmers how to value add.
“These two projects will improve our connection outreach with farmers and the college status will be enhanced further with smallholder farmers being given an opportunity to learn new skills, I wish it had started yesterday because Malawi badly needs to value add its agricultural produce,” he said. n
