Malawi President, Lazarus Chakwera has used the occasion of the Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU) in New York, USA to woo Nuveen Agricultural Investors.
The Asset Management company is responsible for $1.2trn worth is assets and is under a parent company known as TIAA.
Chakwera said the world’s huge expectation on Ukraine despite its war was an indictment on Africa and the lack of investment in the continent.
He said the world should plan for future occurrences by investing in Africa starting with Malawi which he wants to become the world’s biggest food reserve.
“Expecting Ukraine, which is at war with Russia, to be the world’s food basket, was an indictment of the world’s failure to leverage Africa’s potential to be the major food producer,” said Chakwera.
“And in that regard, I invite you to start with Malawi, home to one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world.”
“Let’s make this dream a reality so that when the kind of nightmares we are seeing unfold in Eastern Europe happen, we are not all left at the mercy of aggressors.
“Let’s create the world’s greatest food reserve in Malawi together,” he added.
He also said there’s a reform in the Malawian public sector as they push to cut corruption and bribery that have long pegged the country back.
“Another thing we are reorganizing is the public sector to cut out the red tape, corruption, and bureaucracy that has made doing business difficult in the past,”
“To facilitate this, we have given the Malawi Investment Trade Centre the mandate to make available vast swathes of arable land, which when combined with our commanding stewardship of large volumes of fresh water makes Malawi the perfect platform for an agricultural revolution that will form the basis of a new era of economic prosperity.
“We are also making investments in infrastructural development, particularly in the transport sector, to modernize the roads and rehabilitate the railway system in readiness for the cross-border movement of the agricultural commodities this revolution will produce,” he said.
Chakwera is also in the United States to attend and address the UN General Assembly.
