Malawi, Zambia sign MOU, commercial agreement on fibre cable connectivity

Governments of Malawi and Zambia have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Optic Fibre connectivity to enhance internet while reducing data prices in two countries.

Minister of Information and Digitalization, Moses Kunkuyu signed the MOU and the commercial agreement with his counterpart, Zambia Minister of Science and Technology, Felix Mutati on Thursday, in Lilongwe.

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Kunkuyu said the collaboration and interaction between the two countries has started bearing fruits as they move into the next phase of transforming the thoughts and ideas into tangible areas of cooperation.

“Together we have resolved to collaborate in telecommunications, ICT policy and regulation, spectrum management, satellite Communications, cybersecurity as well as exploring opportunities for joint ventures in digitalization and ICT,” he said.

Kunkuyu further said their collaboration is also expected to promote and facilitate trade and investment in the ICT sectors of the two countries the Government to Government MOU.

He added that the two governments have concluded a Commercial Agreement between state owned Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) and Zambia’s FibreCom.

This agreement will enable Malawi through Escom to purchase internet connectivity capacity from FibreCom at a friendlier cost thereby facilitate Malawi’s goal of bringing down the cost of connectivity in Malawi, he said.

Kunkuyu said their diplomatic relations with Zambia have facilitated the critical milestone doe Malawi to achieve its flagship connectivity intervention, the Diplomatic Data Corridor.

The minister believed that the MOU and Commercial Agreement signed will open more doors and avenues for more deeper collaboration in achieving full digitalization of the two nations especially government services.

Zambia Minister of Science and Technology, Mutati said one of the barriers the two nations are facing is high connectivity costs.

“The agreement will enable people of two nations to do businesses as data will now be cheap,” he said.

Mutati said individuals and governments will be able to make decisions based on data because they have created efficiency on how to deliver to people did to internet connectivity.