Malawi participates at Dubai Expo 2020
Dubai, a city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is holding the first world expo in Middle East, Africa and South Asia from October 1 2021 to March 31 2022. Initially, the event was supposed to be held in 2020 but was postponed due to Covid-19, which caused lockdown and international travel restrictions.
Dubai is part of UAE, a Federation comprising of Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al-Quwain and Fujairah established in 1971.
Later Ras Al Khaimah joined in 1972. In a sense, Dubai Expo 2020 comes at a time UAE celebrates its Golden Jubilee in December 2021.
World Expos have been explicitly organised around a theme that attempts to improve humankind’s knowledge in the areas such as social aspirations, scientific and technological innovation, economic and social progress.
The theme for Dubai Expo 2020 is Connecting Minds, Creating the Future.
On Saturday, Vice-President Saulos Chilima officially opened the Malawi Nation Day at the expo and said Malawi is the best destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) with investment opportunities in tourism, mining, energy, agriculture commercialisation and agro-processing and manufacturing.
“Malawi is ready to do business and also to welcome investors and visitors to enjoy our vibrant culture and experience our beautiful Lake Malawi and wildlife. We are the warm heart of Africa,” said Chilima.
He called on investors to invest in Malawi, saying it is a good market for its goods considering that it is a member of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, Southern African Development Community and ratified the African Continental Free Trade Area treaty.
Malawi through Malawi Investment and Trade Centre (Mitc) is among 192 participating countries at the Expo 2020 Dubai.
In an interview, Mitc senior trade promotion officer Ronald Chapinda said: “The UAE government is hosting the expo dubbed the world’s greatest show. This will be the first of the world expos to be held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region and is expected to attract more than 15.5 million visitors over the six-month period.
“Of these visitors, approximately 20 percent or 3.1million, are anticipated to be business visitors from all around the world.
The expo seeks to create a global networking platform and act as a catalyst for creativity through shared innovations and opportunities.
“Malawi’s attendance at this historic event will provide a platform for entry into the UAE market which imported approximately $28 billion worth of goods from Africa in 2019,” says Chapinda.
In another words, Dubai Expo 2020 is a gateway into a new Middle East and other overseas markets and will help in the promotion of investment opportunities and bankable projects in Malawi, promotion of Malawi’s tourism and culture and country branding.
Chapinda said: “During the expo, there will be opportunities for Malawian businesses to showcase unique Malawian innovations, art and culture in addition to investment projects, tourism attractions and trade in goods and services.
“In addition to direct sales of products to expo visitors, we expect exporters to clinch deals and get investors to Malawi in different sectors such as energy and mining, manufacturing, agriculture and agro-processing.”
Malawian businesspeople, local investors, exporters, policymakers and business promoters are encouraged to attend the expo. All they need to do is to “express their interest to attend to Mitc by indicating the period they want to attend, names of people, undergo Covid-19 vaccination, bear the cost of travel, accommodation and meals.
So far, more than 25 companies from different sectors of the economy are attending the expo.
The role of Mitc in expo is to act as the commission for Malawi’s participation, mobilise the private sector participation, coordinating the Malawi delegation participation, coordinating the B2B (business to business) meetings and coordinating the national day event.
Each participating nation will have a national day between October 2021 and March 2022.
Dubai had an Expo 2020 opening ceremony on eve of October 1 2021 when the gate to Expo 2020 was officially opened.
In his opening speech, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, President of UAE, described the occasion as the opening of a new chapter of the story which began in 1970 before the establishment of UAE.
He said: “Allow me to take you back in time to the year 1970 in the city of Osaka, Japan. There, our people introduced themselves and our culture for the first time at world expo in pavilion inspired by Al Ain’s Al Jahili Fort.
“It is this background which now holds the flag of UAE high. We have focused on investing in human development, expanding our infrastructure, diversifying our economy and creating opportunities for everyone to prosper and grow.” Al Nahyan said today, UAE shareS with the world the lessons learnt, most importantly that by connecting minds, “we are able to achieve milestones others thought were impossible”.
“It was the same vision that motivated us back in 2011 to bid to host the expo and to choose Connecting Minds, Creating the Future as its theme,” he said.
World Expos bring together different nations across the globe in search of solutions to the pressing challenges of the day by offering a journey inside a universal theme by engaging stakeholders and immersive activities.
Participating countries build pavilions to showcase business opportunities in countries they represent. World expo transforms the host city for years to come.
The first world expo and great exhibition took place in London in 1851. Since then, the concept became popular and has been repeated across the globe demonstrating an unparalleled power of attraction and a record of world-class legacies.
Cumulatively, there have been 35 world expos across the globe, the last being Expo 2015 Malan.
The next expo is Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai in Japan. – by Garnet Kibombwe
*Garnet Kibombwe is specialist in leadership management, marketing, communication and community development.
