Chamroo Investment and Trade Consultants (CITC) have pointed out that the prior failed National Export Strategy, was over-designed. The strategy, that ran from 2012-2018, was declared a fail by stakeholders, as CITC findings show that the trade gap remains wide as tobacco was the only trending export, leaving room for imports of other commodities, which is aginst the strategy as it is aimed at increasing exports and reducing imports.

CITC Senior Consultant Dev Chamroo said the strategy was too ambitious, as economic conditions did not favor the goals enlisted in the strategy. Chamroo said that rather than operate on export policy, the strategy operated under industrial policy. “The strategy rests primarily on the export of goods with no concrete provision for building the exports of services, more particularly exports of higher value-added services”.

Should Malawi not learn from the consultation, she risks the same and worse failure in the newly implemented strategy that will run from 2019-2022. Reviewing the prior export strategy, Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry Chief Executive Officer Chancellor Kaferapanjira attributed the fail to a trade deficit of $1.1 billion, as exports in 2018 are $1.1 billion, which was lower than in 2012 when exports were at $1.47 billion.