Malawi Sees at Least 5.5% Growth This Year; Plans Power Boost

LILONGWE (Capital Markets in Africa) – Malawi’s economy will expand at least 5.5 percent this year as the country recovers from a drought that ravaged crops throughout southern Africa, President Peter Mutharika said.

The country also plans to bolster its power-generating capacity in the next decade, using a $200 million World Bank loan to help to raise the generation to 2,500 megawatts from 350 megawatts now, he told lawmakers Friday in the capital, Lilongwe. Of the current installed capacity, about half is functioning, he said.

“We have achieved economic stability and we are now set to rise above,” he said.

Malawi, a southern African country almost the size of Pennsylvania, with a population of 17 million, relies on foreign aid to finance as much as 40 percent of its budget. Floods in 2015 disrupted production of tobacco, the nation’s main export, and a subsequent El Nino-induced drought left more than a third of citizens without sufficient food.

Malawi has enough corn, the nation’s staple food, in reserve to feed its people next season even if crops fail in 2018, Mutharika said. The government imposed a ban on exports last year as it grappled with the drought-spurred shortage.

Source: Bloomberg Business News