The Government of Malawi is committed to the implementation of trade facilitation reforms. The Government recognises that effective implementation of trade facilitation programmes will improve the country’s trade competitiveness, thereby contributing to accelerated national economic growth. The Government’s commitment is visible in the overarching national development strategy, the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS III) and other sectoral policies aimed at providing strategic direction for the holistic implementation of trade facilitation programmes in the country.

Trade facilitation by simple definition is about the simplification, harmonisation, standardisation, and modernisation of international trade procedures with the objective of reducing transaction costs in local and international trade. Trade facilitation processes increase or reduce the transaction costs associated with trading across the borders of a country. The primary goal of trade facilitation reforms is to make trade across borders faster and cheaper. This entails making procedures and the related exchange of information and documents between the various partners in the supply chain more predictable, whilst ensuring the safety and security of transactions.

The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism is the coordinating agency for the implementation of trade facilitation initiatives in Malawi. In order to effectively implement multitask trade facilitation interventions, the Ministry facilitated the establishment of an inter-agency National Trade Facilitation Committee (NTFC) in 2015 to oversee the implementation of trade facilitation reforms. Since 2015, the NTFC has been guided by a three-year National Trade Facilitation Action Plan (NTF-AP), which was developed in collaboration with all stakeholders following various studies undertaken in the area of trade facilitation.

The development of a simplified and automated trade environment is a challenging reform programmes that requires vision, leadership, change management and collaboration between all stakeholders. The document at hand is a revision of the previous NTF-AP, which was revised to guide the NTFC on the implementation of trade facilitation activities for the next five years until 2023. The revised NTF-AP supersedes the first one in terms of objectives, vision, goals and performance indicators for objective monitoring and evaluation.

At the global level, Malawi, being a member of the World Trade Organization, subscribes to the ideals and objectives of the Trade Facilitation Agreement, aiming at standardising import, export and transit trade processes and procedures. Malawi, being a landlocked country that relies on neighbouring countries for accessing to seaports, finds relief in the provisions of the Trade Facilitation Framework as it binds transit countries to guarantee standard transit procedures thereby ensuring predictability when transiting through neighbouring countries.

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