By Joseph Banda
President Lazarus Chakwera has expressed excitement with market opportunities in Dubai and is optimistic Malawi will benefit. He said this after a meeting with Emirates Airlines who have opened up to having flights to Malawi to transport agriculture products for the foreign market.
Chakwera expressed gratitude to Emirates Airlines Vice President (Cargo – Africa), Khalid Hinai and Regional Finance and Administration Manager (Gulf, Middle East and Iran), Lloyd Mahowe, for arranging meetings between buyers of agricultural products in Dubai and some farmers in Malawi. During thw meeting , President Chakwera has assured Emirates Airlines that as minister of transport, he will ensure Malawi quickly sorts out capacity challenges at Kamuzu International Airport such as the screening process and inadequate cold storage facilities.
A few weeks ago, Foreign Affairs minister, Eisenhower Mkaka and Mahowe, were in Dubai working on how to curb the challenges.President Chakwera informed the meeting that Malawi’s economy is agro-based and that his administration is focusing on agriculture in order to improve the economy. He assured the meeting that his government is working on ensuring a good environment for the private sector to thrive.
Engineer Vitumbiko Mumba told the meeting that it was up to Malawians to enhance production levels so as to tap into the available demand. “It is not on for the cargo key flight to be leaving Malawi empty and instead go and get agricultural products in Uganda when we can provide the same. Leadership is what we need and in Chakwera we have that leadership hence all these initiatives,” Eng. Mumba said.
