The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism is set to officially launch a Trade Portal at an event slated for Thursday at Mount Soche Hotel.
In a statement, Principal Secretary for Industry, Trade and Tourism, Cliff Chiunda, said the trade portal is aimed at providing easy access to trade-related regulatory information in order to enhance transparency and accountability.
The Trade Portal—a one-stop website for trade-related regulatory information for import, export and transit trade— complements World Trade Organisation Agreement on Trade Facilitation, to which Malawi is a signatory, which obliges governments to transparency and facilitation of information to businesses.
“In order to turn Malawi into a producing and exporting country, Government has embarked on a drive to facilitate trade and investment,” said Chiunda in the statement.
Chiunda said the trade portal, among other benefits, will help reduce the time traders spend to get proper documentation for trade, adding: “the expected result will be improved ease of doing business due to reduced trading time and cost”.
The Portal carries all commercial laws and regulations governing import, export and transit of commercial goods, procedures and requirements for processing licenses and various permits, and the samples of these application forms that can be downloaded.
The portal also contains information on which goods are prohibited, restricted, and other non-tariff measures; the entire catalogue of applicable tariffs linked to commodity classification is also available.
“If you are a trader, the portal will allow you to know the legal requirements you are supposed to meet as you either import and/ or export your respective commodities. It will also alert you as to the duties, and other fees, or exemptions that are applicable to your commodity. All this from the comfort of your office or place of business,” Chiunda said in the statement.
The portal scheduled for launch by Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism Joseph Mwanamvekha, has been developed with financial and technical assistance from the World Bank Group.
The trade portal is expected to help improve Malawi’s rankings in World Bank’s Doing Business Index and the Global Competitiveness Index.
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