Malawi, Zambia for lucrative digital market

Malawi and Zambia have signed a diplomatic data corridor agreement and a government-to-government memorandum of understanding (MoU) to help bridge the digital divide and provide an affordable digital market.

The agreements signed in Lilongwe on Thursday, will ensure access to cheaper Internet, facilitated by Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) and Fibrecom of Zambia.

Minister of Information and Digitisation Moses Kunkuyu said the agreements will enable Malawians to create opportunities resulting from low-cost data.

He said as a landlocked country, Malawi has high Internet charges as data is obtained from undersea cables whose landing cost is high; hence, making the charges transferable to consumers.

Said Kunkuyu: “The aim is to lower the cost of data.

“The signing of this agreement will see data landing costs into the country lowered, thereby allowing Malawians to access Internet in different fields.”

On his part, Zambia Minister of Technology and Science Felix Mutati said Africa needs to be connected for increased economic progress and to expand opportunities.

He said: “Internet is the life-blood that transforms the way we do business and cost has been one of the barriers to accessing the Internet.

“You cannot transform if you have a barrier of cost around the Internet. We are now breaking it down.”

Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority director general Daudi Suleman said Malawi is pushing towards reducing data costs, adding such agreements are a step in the right direction.

“Our wholesale price tag is about $8 per gigabyte and once we have interconnected all the routes that we want, we are going to get to $3 per gigabyte of data which is almost 200 percent reduction and that is the price point that we are pushing towards,” he observed.