By Manasse Nyirenda

Johannesburg, August 23, Mana: President Lazarus Chakwera has asked ILOVO Group to diversify their value chain in Malawi to other crops for the benefit of Malawians and also the company.

The president was engaging Group Chief Executive Officer, for ILOVO Africa, Gavin Dalglish at Davinci hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg on the sidelines of the on-going BRICS summit in South Africa.

In an interview after meeting the president, Dalglish said was looking forward to the completion of the Shire River canal which is significant and I think it will have multi-generational benefits and it’s a wonderful opportunity to create more value chains for Malawi.

“We talked about growth prospects for ILOVO Sugar in Malawi in particular around the Shire River Canal Project and the potential it has to create more value chains for Malawi and the ongoing investment climate in Malawi,” he said.

Minister of Finance Sosten Gwengwe said the president has been engaging the ILOVO Group for the past three years to find ways of diversifying

“The main focus was on illovo to diversify value chain to sectors of our economy in addition to sugar. ILOVO is about 60 years old, but they have really done only the sugar value chain addition and I think time is now ripe with the Shire Valley Transformation Programme which focuses on gravity fed irrigation.

“ILOVO can be the main off taker of that water and develop a second value chain whether its cotton or legumes or whichever value chain that can be scaled to the size of sugar and I feel it is a win-win for Malawi and ILOVO,” he said.

The BRICS Summit officially closes tomorrow and president Chakwera is expected to attend the closing ceremony with other leaders.

BRICS comprises of five emerging world economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa focusing on economic and political stability.

President of China, XI Jinping has also backed expansion of the BRICS arguing it would make global governance fairer.

Some Africa countries including Algeria and Egypt have expressed interest to join.

Mana/mn/scm