Africa-Press – Malawi. Finance and Economic Affairs minister Sosten Gwengwe says Malawi must build its productive sectors to increase locally produced to build its economy and create decent jobs for majority of its people, especially the youth.
He was speaking this morning in Lilongwe when he officially opened the Access to Entrepreneurship Finance Workshop through which various financial institutions and other entrepreneurship institutions are presenting funding opportunities available at their institutions to the youth and other existing and prospective small and medium scale entrepreneurs.
Gwengwe said Malawians want a better quality of life and attainment of wealth creation as envision in the Malawi 2063 national vision and that promoting home-grown businesses, especially those run by young people, is one way of achieving this.
He said, however, that although there is availability of a wide variety of financial packages, many people lament having no knowledge of them and that where such knowledge is available, frustrations also abound on the hurdles encountered in accessing the finances.
“We have witnessed so many projects being unable to disburse the funds to support entrepreneurs, yet so many are looking for such funds. This is neither productive nor progressive – whichever way you look at it,” said Gwengwe.
He was hopeful that the Access to Entrepreneurship Finance Workshop would help bring to light various entrepreneurship financing vehicles and institutions, including banks, and linking them with existing or potential entrepreneurs.
“It is important that we all work together to support micro, small, medium and large-scale businesses for us to realize our inclusive wealth creation aspirations,” said Gwengwe.
The workshop, to run for two days at the Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe, has been organised by the National Planning Commission in partnership with the Malawi Agriculture and Industrial Investment Centre (MAIIC), the Agriculture Commercialisation Project (AGCOM), National Bank of Malawi, the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), the Malawi Investment and Trade Centre and the National Youth Council of Malawi.
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