Mutharika govt to double Malawi GDP by 2019
The chief economic advisor to Malawi President Collins Magalasi says government is aiming stabilising the economy before doubling the country’s GDP which approximately stood at K2 trillion by end of 2013 to about K4 trillion by 2019.
Magalasi was speaking at Malawi Sun Hotel in Blantyre during a credit symposium organised by Credit Data, a local credit reference bureau.
He said Malawi has a lot of natural resources and skilled labour which if combined properly would propel the country’s economy highlighting that the country has never experienced war but is surprisingly poor.
“To double the economy in five years, we have a number of strategies including ensuring that we have an effective private sector, we shrink government expenditure, and ensure efficiency in government,” said Magalasi.
The Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) in the 2013 Report and Accounts released last week indicated that revised national accounts show that after growing by about 2.1 percent in 2012, Malawi’s GDP picked up to 6.1 percent in 2013.
According to the World Bank 2014 Global Economic Prospects, Malawi’s GDP grew by an average 3.8 percent between 2000 and 2009, grew by 6.5 percent in 2010 and 4.3 percent in 2011.
However, Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development Goodall Gondwe, presenting the 2014/15 budget last week, said the government is confident that regardless of the economic slowdown that has characterised the past financial years, a stable macroeconomic situation would prevail in Malawi during the financial year.
President Peter Mutharika during his inaugural speech in June this year said his government will implement policies that will turnaround the country’s economy to achieve a 7.5 percent economic growth rate for the next five years.
However, a local analyst doubted the attainment of the economic growth rate pointing out that Malawi has a number of things that are wrong.
But Magalasi, a former activist and executive director for African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (Afrodad), said the current government will ensure RBM independence so that it implements its monetary policies to effectively bring down inflation.
According to the proposed budget, government plans to bring down inflation to 15 percent by end of this financial year.
The chief economic advisor to the President pointed out that the government will also ensure to increase exports by working on supply side constraints, specifically by opening up other corridors and improve on access to credit and achieve a mining sector contribution to GDP of 33 percent GDP. According to available figures mining contributes about 10 percent to the GDP.
