President Lazarus Chakwera has stated that the country’s economy has been fundamentally unsound for a long time, resulting in continuous suffering for Malawians.
He was speaking at Parliament on Friday during the State of the Nation Adress (SONA) titled “Taking stock and advantage of our progress in achieving economic recovery and resilience”.
“The maturing of Malawi in this year of Diamond Jubilee and the compounded pain of Malawians are enough reason to demand seriousness in the way we conduct our affairs going forward, there is yet one more reason to do so. That reason is that the fundamentals of our economy have been unsound for a long time, stunting the pace of growth and demanding an urgent restructuring of our economy.
“Take the inflation rates, for example, which reached 34.5 percent this past December, well above the 2023 average of 28.8 percent. Such inflation rates, which have been going up from year to year for some time now, recently triggered by reduced maize production, are a rising temperature and fever signaling the presence of an infection in the bloodstream of our economy,” he said
While calling on legislatures for more positive thinking, Chakwera took a swipe at some economists who he said think that any small improvement in Malawi’s Gross Domestic Product is acceptable.
What Malawians deserve is an economy that is no longer sick, one that is healthy and able to compete, not just one whose fever is slowly going down. I hope no one incthis room or this country thinks it is acceptable that between 2022 and 2023, the GDP only grew by 0.6 percent.
“I hope no one in this room or this country finds it acceptable that our GDP for 2023 was lower than the 3.1 percent the World Economic Outlook Report projected for the global economy in the same period. I hope no one in this room or this country is satisfied to see our economy continue to be at the mercy of the fate of advanced economies, whose economic slowdown and restrictive monetary policies are currently dragging down global growth.
“I hope no one in this room or this country accepts that just because the economic growth for the Sub-Saharan region is stuck below its historical average and just because the economic growth projected for Malawi this year is also below that average, we must let that be our fate.
“I hope no one in this room or this country finds it acceptable that our gross official reserves at the end of the third quarter of 2023 were less than 250 million dollars, equivalent to just under one month of import cover, not when we have thousands of diaspora Malawians generating revenue abroad and not when the international market is in short supply of value chains we can produce in abundance here at home,” he said
