By Mana
President Lazarus Chakwera on Tuesday went to his office at Capital Hill where he had several engagements including meeting ministers responsible for Agriculture, Tourism and Mining (ATM), ahead of ATM strategy promotion week.
Speaking in an interview after meeting the president, Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale said the three ministers had an audience with the president to brief him on the preparations for the ATM promotion week scheduled for 19 to 27 April in Lilongwe.
He said, the ATM promotion week has been crafted to show Malawians and investors from outside the country the opportunities that are there to invest in Malawi in areas of Agriculture, Tourism and Mining, saying these are the investment opportunity that President Chakwera is spearheading.
He said the ATM are the areas that have higher opportunities to transform the country in the short, medium and long term.
“Specifically, for the ministry of Agriculture we will start on 19th April to 20th April and our focus is to bring together different investors and stakeholders. We will have investors specifically the financing institutions such as banks who will tell us what services they have to help Malawians to invest in the agriculture sector,” Kawale said.
“We will also have fertilizer, seed and tractor suppliers among others. We will also provide several rooms where different negotiations and deals will be struck for people to go into production. Specifically, we are focusing on irrigation as a way to help us increase production but also to be resilient to climate change shocks,” He added.
The minister said there will be displays from ministry of Agriculture where different departments, agencies and companies under the ministry will tell Malawians what services they are providing.
“An interesting part will be the department of research where it will show Malawians what new seeds are available and what fertilizers are available that will make farming cheaper and also have higher yield,” He said.
Speaking in a separate interview, Minister of Mining Monica Chang’anamuno said it is the first time for the ministry of mining to conduct the Malawi Mining investment forum.
She said, mining investment forum will take place on 23rd and 24th April and they have invited those that are doing small, medium and large-scale mining so that they can showcase their work.
She urged people from Malawi and outside to come and participate during the forum to create more opportunities.
