By Tione Andsen

Lilongwe, November 25, Mana:  Government has admitted that access to financial resources remains a corners stone to transformation.

Minister of Trade and industry. Sosten Gwengwe said this during the launch of Grants programme under Southern Africa Trade and Connectivity Project (SATCP) ay Crossroads Hotel in Lilongwe.

He said provision of tangible financial support particularly to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) would unlock the country’s economy.

Gwengwe said the grants would empower the SMEs to produce value added products that would be competitive at regional markets.

“We need to address the bottlenecks facing value adding process and provide alternatives that are long lasting” the Minister added.

He pointed out that the private sector involvement in the implementation of SATCP remains key and needs to play a vital role in helping in financing.

The Minister viewed that the key to the success of the loans would depend on the SMEs that would be reached out and saying there was need to reach out to new one so that they should benefit too.

He urged 15 participating councils to make use of the grants in order to consolidate the issue of promoting value chains.

Gwengwe thanked the World Banks for granting Malawi a 50 percent grant from the US$ 150 million loans to be implemented in the SATCP.  

World Bank Senior Private Sector Specialist, Efrem Chilima said the World Bank was keen to ensure that value addition and commercialization in the agriculture sector was promoted.

He said there are number of projects the Bank was implementing in the country in order to commercialize the agriculture sector in order to achieve economic growth.