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Malawi and four other countries in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) will take part in a regional export promotion training project initiated by a German organisation called Carl Duiseberg Gesellschaft (CDG).
Dubbed CDG Trade Africa, the project seeks to address business and export constraints faced by exporters in the region by providing them with the necessary skills to identify possible business financiers, produce quality products and conduct export market research.
In Malawi, Business Consult Africa (BCA) has been contracted to conduct the training that will start on October 14 and wind up in May next year.
BCA senior business consultant Henry Kachaje said in Blantyre that South Africa, because of its advanced and strong economic base, will be the importer in the project while the other member states will be looking at how they could export into its market.
He said the project will work hand in hand with the International Trade Centre (ITC), Sadc, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) and the Association of Sadc Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Kachaje said the training will be divided into five weekly modules that will cover issues of business readiness for exporting, export marketing, finance, insurance and trade fairs, quality, transport and logistics.
He said under finance, insurance and trade fair modules, exporters will learn about methods and sources of exports financing, central bank and Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) regulations related to exports, exports insurance requirement and understanding of shipping terms..
“The climax of this project is that the participants are going to meet buyers at a buyer/seller meeting in South Africa,” said Kachaje, whose organisation is working in alliance with the Malawi Export Promotion Council (Mepc) in the training.
Mepc general manager Lawrence Chauluka said participating companies will pay a commitment fee of US$100 per module.
According to Kachaje, CDG is subsidising the training cost so that the benefits are spread over from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to large scale enterprises.
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