N
ational Planning Commission (NPC) says Malawi needs to generate an extra seven percent of its nominal gross domestic product (GDP) to attain the middle-income economy by 2030, with agriculture being the main driver.
NPC director general Thomas Chataghalala Munthali said this yesterday in Lilongwe during the opening of a two-day 2022 Malawi Agricultural Productivity and Commercialisation Conference organised by Mwapata Policy Institute.
President Lazarus Chakwera officially opened the conference.
In his keynote address, Munthali said Malawi’s nominal GDP is close to $12 billion (about K12.3 trillion) and that given the population is around 19 million, the country needs to reach a GDP of $19 billion (about K19 trillion) to graduate into low middle-income.
He said: “This means we need an immediate extra investment into the economy of $7 billion.
“This gap in investment requirement will be growing as the years go by because our population is also growing. “
Munthali warned that Malawi will not need the usual incremental investments by smallholder farmers nor just the micro, small, medium enterprises, but investments of the size of mega farms running on huge irrigation tracks.
He cited investments such as the Shire Valley Irrigation Project and a highly mechanised farming system to perennially meet the demand of the huge markets the country fails to supply .
Minister of Agriculture Lobin Lowe said time has come for researchers, government and players in the sector to make farming attractive for the youth.
He said the youth do not consider investing in agriculture as a viable means of living because of a myriad of challenges associated such as low mechanisation.
Lowe said there is need for more crop diversification, adding that Malawi largely relies on maize and tobacco and whenever the two crops perform poorly, the country faces hunger and a surge in poverty.
In his remarks, Chakwera said he is fully vested in the agenda of transforming the agricultural sector towards commercialisation.
“That is why next week, I am launching the Private Sector Labs through my Presidential Delivery Unit, which will bring together private sector players to tell us about the roadblocks they face in their quest to invest in this country,” he said. n
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