Malawian agro exporters will now have reduced downtime and costs for their exports following Malawi Bureau of Standards’ (MBS) extension of international certification to support exports and import substitution in 150 scopes.
The scopes, which include pesticides, veterinary drugs, mycotoxin, proximate analyses, microbiology, petrochemicals engineering and materials, are critical for certifying priority value chains such as macadamia nuts, groundnuts, soya beans and honey to meet international quality and safety requirements.
Before the certification, exporters were sending most of their samples to South Africa and Kenya for standards certification, costing an average of $300 (K525 300) and at least 17 days while MBS has a downtime of 10 days and costs between K10 000 to K250 000 per sample.
In an interview on the sidelines of an MBS Open Day on Thursday, MBS director of standards development Fred Sikwese said while utilising the facilities could help save foreign exchange, it will also help improve competitiveness of exporters.
He said: “The export market looks for testing services that are arising from a facility that is accredited.
“Some of the samples relate to certification services that we provide as part of our regulatory function. These activities have been increasing over the years.”
MBS data indicates that on average, they are testing about 77 000 samples in a year, but the facility has the capacity to test an average of 100 samples in a day.
Since 2022, MBS has been procuring modern laboratory equipment, building staff capacity and developed over 35 national standards across priority value chains such as macadamia nuts, groundnuts, soya beans and honey.
These efforts have culminated in MBS achieving international certification in critical testing areas, including mycotoxins, pesticide residues, heavy metals and microbiology for its K13 billion laboratory commissioned in 2020.
In his remarks, Malawi Macadamia Association administrator Khumbo Chibambo said the industry hopes to improve profit margins and lower export costs following certification as they have been sending samples to South Africa and Kenya.
He said Malawi is at the moment Africa’s third largest producer of macadamia nuts and last year alone, they produced 10 060 metric tonnes, which fetched about $40 million (about K70 billion) in foreign exchange.
Meanwhile, Trade Mark Africa, which has supported MBS in strengthening its conformity assessment system, has described the milestone as a game-changer.
In an interview, Trade Mark Africa programme manager responsible for Malawi and Mozambique Noah Sangole said there is no need to have foreign exchange to send samples to South Africa and Kenya.
“But now they can just walk into MBS and that will improve the competitiveness of the exporters in Malawi,” he said.
The development comes at a time Malawi’s exports are being returned for failing to meet international standards with up to 70 percent of sesame affected.
