Wealth creation a key to development – Chakwera

President Dr Lazarus Chakwera on Friday opened the 2024/2025 budget meeting of Parliament with a call for the country to invest more resources in tourism and mining sectors for the development of the country.

Upon arrival at Parliament Building, President Chakwera was welcomed by Vice President, Dr Saulos Chilima, Speaker of the National Assembly Catherine Gotani Hara, Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament (MPs) and other government officials.

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Speaking during the State of the Nation Address (SONA), Chakwera highlighted the country’s tourism performance has remained behind because of the challenges in the sector.

“While tourism is still Malawi’s third largest source of foreign exchange after tobacco and tea, I am convinced that this sector continues to perform below it’s true potential. That is why this past year we began to address factors in other sectors that hold our tourism sector back.

“As government, we have not only increased the number of airlines traveling to Malawi but also concluded three bilateral air service agreements with Mozambique, Uganda and Kuwait to introduce direct flights into Malawi while talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritius and Nigeria to do the same are in progress,” he said.

Currently, the country is in the process of designing a Malawi Flight Plan for increased air access.

The President said, among others, government has removed visa requirements for citizens of 79 countries coming to Malawi a development which is expected to increase the volumes of tourists into the country.

On mining President Chakwera emphasised that there can be no wealth creation from the minerals without organising the sector to end decades of exploitation and negligence.

“During the year gone by, we have set up institutional framework for bringing sanity and creating wealth from our mining sector. We have repealed the Mines and Minerals Act and replaced it with a new one so that the law protects the interests of Malawians in all mining activities.

“As government, we have established a National Mining Company that belongs to the Malawian people with the mandate to catalyse private sector development, encourage joint ventures, act as a state equity partner, undertake in-depth exploration, and most importantly, maximise revenue generation and social benefits to Malawians,” he said.

Government is in a mining development agreement with different companies and is yet to start mining of niobium at Kanyika in Mzimba.

National Planning Commission (NPC) Director General, Dr Thomas Munthali described the SONA as centred towards the Malawi 2063 centric as it places wealth creation at the centre.

“It sends the correct signals to all stakeholders on the importance of getting serious in living the talk of wealth creation. The President has set the most important tone of wealth creation and we all have to hold each other accountable to get this into action,” he said.