Commercial farmers in the country will have to wait a little longer to be able to access loans from the agriculture development bank as government has just started conducting feasibility studies to establish the viability of setting up such a bank in the country.
There have been calls from various stakeholders for the government to introduce the facility as one way of addressing challenges faced by farmers in accessing finance for purchasing agriculture inputs at low interest rates.
Both Minister of Finance, Goodall Gondwe, and the ministry’s publicist, Nations Msowoya, confirmed that government is considering setting up the development bank but after it conducts thorough diagnostic studies to establish if the project is viable or not.
“We are talking with the African Development Bank which has shown interest to sponsor the project. At the moment, we are doing a feasibility study to establish if indeed the development bank would be able to address challenges in the agriculture sector,” Gondwe said on Wednesday during the 28th Annual General Congress Tobacco Association of Malawi held in Lilongwe.
“You know projects like these are donor dependent but we want to see the bank operational within a year or so,” said Gondwe.
And in a separate interview, Msowoya, said the feasibility study will also help government to define the bank’s governance structure and the products it will be offering.
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