Two local women stand out in India’s business sector
Daily Fresh, a local business trading in fresh farm produce placed Malawi among eight countries that received special awards in India recently.
The brand is a partnership between two local agri-preneurs, Ngabaghila Chatata and Peggy Ngwira, directors of Thanthwe Enterprises and Faggy Investments respectively.
According to Ngwira, the award means that the Indian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) would like Daily Fresh to profile them in the country so they can partner with Malawian entrepreneurs.
And Chatata said: “It was an amazing experience to see how SMEs in India do business; their levels of business mindedness and how they are aiming high to produce quality. They are also aggressively pursuing partnerships across their borders. Apart from that, the support from their government is very clear through facilitation of access to finance, technology and technical support.”
They duo received the award during the 2018 India SME Convention in New Delhi where among other things they had a chance to exchange business ideas with entrepreneurs from other countries as well as finding new business opportunities.
Thanthwe Enterprises was founded as a solution to the importation of high value vegetables in the country and it envisions a Malawi that is able to produce and export high quality fruits and vegetables.
Faggy Investments on the other hand, is into pig farming and has chickens and three fish dams and produces meat products such as sausages.
Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, through the Competitiveness and Job Creation Support Project (CJCSP), was delighted that the two entrepreneurs attended the India SME convention.
“The Ministry is implementing the CJCSP and one of the sub components of this project is the Business Linkages Matching Grant Fund (BLMGF). Thanthwe Enterprises and Faggy Investments are beneficiaries of the grant fund to the tune of $20 000 (about K14.6 million) each to upscale their operations.
“The fund, which operates on a matching arrangement, is meant to help enhance the capacity of SMEs and cooperatives to serve the current business partners better and establish new business linkages,” said Esther Mwimba, director of Private Sector Development and CJCSP project coordinator.
She said the ministry and the CJCSP is very pleased with the market readiness from the grant as demonstrated by the two businesses to enter international markets.
“Of particular interest is that these two businesses created a co-brand called Daily Fresh. The spirit for SMEs to work together in Malawi is not so common and these two women are showing the way SMEs have to do business. For these reasons, the ministry, through the project could not hesitate to support them with air tickets to showcase their products in India,” she said.
