By Linda Kwanjana
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission which has just concluded its discussions with Malawi Government officials has discribed the just concluded discussions as fruitful.
IMF Mission chief , Justin Tyson told journalists at Capital Hill that the just held discussions have been so successful.
He said the discussions focused on near-term policy priorities. He said the Staff agreed that urgent fiscal consolidation and tighter monetary policy are needed to tackle inflation, reduce imbalances, and stabilize the foreign exchange market.
He said the staff commend the authorities for reactivating the automatic fuel price mechanism and encourage them to operationalize the promised fiscal discipline and revenue mobilization, starting with the mid-year budget.
The team leader, said, Recent measures to control expenditure are a positive sign. Staff look forward to continued engagement with the authorities on their macroeconomic reform trajectory.
“We commend the government’s efforts to control spending in response to ongoing fiscal pressures. We look forward to seeing how these measures are integrated into a comprehensive package that supports long-term fiscal sustainability,” he said adding,Â
“We had very productive discussions with the authorities. We discussed the recent economic, financial and social developments, and as we all know, the macroeconomic challenges for the new government are significant. These include a worse than budgeted fiscal outturn of the mid year, accelerated inflation and continued pressures on the exchange rate,” he said.
The IMF Chief said Growth is projected to be modest in 2025 at 2.4% and food insecurity is elevated while public Debt dynamics remain unsustainable.
Speaking during the function, Minister of Finance Joseph Mwanamveka commended IMF for the fruitful discussions held as the country navigates towards economic recovery.
Mwanamveka said currently there is no any Extended Credit Facilities (ECF) programme with the IMF as other people have been insinuating.
The Minister assured IMF that there is economic recovery plan in place and Government is doing everything to ensure the economy is back at its lane.
