By Sella Singini
President Lazarus Chakwera on Tuesday held several engagements including meeting ministers responsible for Agriculture, Tourism and Mining (ATM) ahead of ATM strategy promotion week at his Capitall hill office.
In an interview with the media after meeting president Chakwera, Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale said the three ministers responsible for ATM strategy had an audience meeting with the president to brief him on the preparations of the ATM promotion week scheduled for 19th April to 27th April in Lilongwe.
He said, the ATM promotion week has been crafted to show Malawians and investors from outside the country the opportunities that are there to invest in Malawi in areas of Agriculture, Tourism and Mining and that the areas are the investment opportunity that President Chakwera is spearheading because of its higher opportunities to transform the country in the short, medium and long term.
“Specifically, for the ministry of Agriculture we will start on 19th April to 20th April and our focus is to bring together different investors and stakeholders. We will have investors specifically the financing institutions such as banks who will tell us what services they have to help Malawians to invest in the agriculture sector.
“We will also have fertilizer suppliers, seed suppliers, tractor suppliers and among others. We will provide several rooms where different negotiations and deals will be struck for people to go into production. Specifically, we are focusing on irrigation as a way to help us increase production but also to be resilient to climate change shocks,” he added.
Kawale further said, there will be also displays from ministry of Agriculture where different departments, agencies and companies under the ministry will tell Malawians what services they are providing.
“An interesting part will be the department of research where it will show Malawians what new seeds are available and what fertilizers are available that will make farming cheaper and also have high yield,” he said.
Speaking in a separate interview, Minister of Mining Monica Chang’anamuno said it is the first time for the ministry of mining to conduct the Malawi Mining Investment Forum.
She said, Mining Investment Forum will be held on 23rd and 24th April and they have invited those that are doing small, medium and large-scale mining so that they can showcase their work.
She therefore urged people from Malawi and outside Malawi to come and participate during the forum to create more opportunities.
