SPC dangles incentives to woo agri-investors

Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) Colleen Zamba on Tuesday pitched incentives, including tax holidays, to potential investors in the United States of America (USA) in Malawi’s agriculture sector.

The SPC was pitching at the just-ended US-Africa Business Summit in Dallas, Texas, USA during a panel discussion under the theme ‘Scaling agribusiness ventures: Opportunities and challenges in taking African agriculture to the next level’.

President Lazarus Chakwera attended the summit.

Zamba, a macroeconomist and international development adviser, said Malawi is ready to offer between five and 10 years in tax holidays to serious investors in the agriculture sector.

She cited macadamia farming as one of the areas Capital Hill has deliberately targeted for incentives because of its high-earning potential and long-term investment nature.

Other incentives include favourable land tenures, a harmonised regulatory regime to fast-track processes such as registration and a legal framework that enables arbitration of disputes, among other issues that concern investors.

Zamba said there are more incentives under Special Agricultural Processing Zones to come under a package of legislation that President Lazarus Chakwera signed into law in January this year to protect investors and secure Malawians’ interests.

She said: “Agriculture is a gold mine in Malawi. Water is available in abundance. We have a young population and a stable democracy.

“We are ready to work with partners to take agriculture to the next level.”

The Chakwera administration hopes Malawi can become a regional agricultural hub powered by vast arable land, fresh water bodies, a maturing policy environment and a strong demographic dividend.

Speaking on the same panel, Agbeyewa Farms chief executive officer Dele Odufuye, whose firm is one of Nigeria’s biggest agri-businesses, said for African agriculture to rise, governments and the private sector should partner to elevate the knowledge of communities regarding the business of agriculture and technical know-how.

He said such partnerships can also result in joint development of agro-processing facilities and improvements in enabling infrastructure such as roads and irrigation infrastructure.

To attract private sector partners, the Malawi Government is leading the way to up the game and is currently working with multilateral financiers such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank to commercialise mega farming.

For example, government is pushing for large-scale agricultural initiatives such as the Shire Valley Transformation Programme and Agricultural Commercialisation Project apart from the Affordable Inputs Programme, to catalyse high value farming, said Zamba.

The Chakwera administration has perched agriculture, together with tourism and mining, at the centre of Malawi’s growth and development agenda.

Agriculture alone makes up more than one-quarter of Malawi’s gross domestic product.