By Kondanani Chilimunthaka
President Lazarus Chakwera has described the Private Sector as a key to the country’s economic growth, saying it remains one sector that operates on productivity, and discipline of producing things of value in the marketplace.
Speaking on Friday, June 17,2022 at BICC in the city of Lilongwe during the launch of Private Sector Labs, President Chakwera told the nation that he has launched the labs to bring leaders of Government and business captains together to find solutions as to what must be changed to make Malawi a place where business and investments can easily expand, export, and employ.
“If we can answer that question, we will begin to create a private sector that drives Malawi’s economic growth and creates the kind of prosperity that does not involve bribing anyone or stealing anything. I am talking about building a private sector that is capable of sustaining and spreading economic gains by fostering increased savings and capital formation, technology transfer, and better products and services for consumers.
I am talking about building a private sector that is capable of mobilising and attracting both domestic and external investments. I am talking about building a private sector that is capable of creating employment and growing incomes for citizens.” Said President Chakwera in his speech.
Malawi leader further said; to build such a resilient private sector in the country, Malawians must keep thinking about what must change in order to make the country a place where businesses and investments that desire to produce valuable things find it easy to operate.
“Our central objective in all the changes we will resolve to make in this lab is to ease the manner and cost of doing business in Malawi. And because business vary in size, I have designed these initial private sector labs to target large corporates, to be followed by labs targeting SMEs and cooperatives of a similar size contend with are tackled at the same time. In either case, I have directed senior officials of my Government to be here to listen and work with you on finding solutions that lead to progress.” President Chakwera said.
The President then said the agro-industrialization remains a top priority for his administration and the lab to achieve the Malawi 2063 vision of an inclusively wealthy self-reliant, and middle-income economy, adding that he expects the lab to among others have commitments by various Government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to implement the changes necessary for private sector growth, adding that he also expects a great commitment by the private sector including financial institutions.
