By George Mponda

Karonga, January 14, Mana: Minister of Trade Sosten Gwengwe has said government is committed to support cooperatives and small and medium enterprises in value addition which will help in the transformation of Malawi's economy by increasing revenue generation.

Gwengwe was speaking on Tuesday in Karonga where he visited Rukulu Rice Women Cooperative, a beneficiary of the Agricultural Commercialization (AGCOM) Project where he pledged to help cooperatives in adding value to their produce for exportation.

"As a country, we are importing more products than we are exporting and we need to reverse this trend in order for us to be creating wealth for our country through locally made products that are exported,” he said.

"Government will continue to introduce initiatives which will expose local cooperatives to the international market and we are in the process of constructing a COMESA market in Mchinji which will soon open doors for Malawian products to the international market," the minister added.

Gwengwe then pledged to simplify cross-border trade and exports as part of government's plan to boost Malawian businesses and take advantage of various export windows for economic growth.

Chairperson for Rukulu Rice Women Cooperative, Elizabeth Mwamukangama, said their cooperative, which was established in 2019, produces high quality and properly graded rice.

"We got K38,600,000 from AGCOM which we used to install a grader and an automated rice color sorter which are being used to grade rice in sizes and then we pack it in a properly branded paper," said Mwamukangama.

"For a year now, we have been supplying rice to Bingu International Conference Centre in Lilongwe and we have recently started supplying rice to the cafeteria at Kayelekera Uranium Mine here in Karonga," she added.

She said from 2023 to 2024, the cooperative achieved a total income of K154,866,875.00.

However, Mwamukangama bemoaned the flooding of cheap and fake Kilombero rice products on the local markets believed to be from neighbouring Tanzania, which she said is destroying the reputation of their original Kilombero rice and affecting sales.

National Coordinator for AGCOM Ted Nakhumwa said their purpose is to commercialize farming since a majority of smaller holder farmers in Malawi are subsistent.

According to Nakhumwa, AGCOM has since disbursed $95 million, reaching to 265 productive cooperatives in various value chains, major ones being soya production, fisheries, dairy farming, beef and honey production.