Mr. Atif Ikram Sheikh, President of FPCCI, has welcomed the appointment of Mr. Abdullah Zaki as the honorary consul general of the Republic of Malawi on behalf of the entire business, industry, and trade community of Pakistan. He emphasized that Mr. Abdullah Zaki is from within the business community, and FPCCI is confident that he will be able to open Malawi’s doors to Pakistani exporters.
Mr. Atif Ikram Sheikh highlighted that the Southeast African country of Malawi has a population of 25 million people, but our exports to them are only $9 million per year. This makes it clear that we have a substantive potential to increase our exports.
Mr. Abdullah Zaki, honorary Consul General of Malawi in Pakistan, explained that Malawi has enormous potential for Pakistani exporters in diverse sectors—textiles, rice, pharmaceuticals, surgical instruments, sports goods, construction materials, motorcycles, etc. He added that Malawi is also a great destination for Pakistani industrialists as labor is cheap and taxation is low.
Mr. Saquib Fayyaz Magoon, SVP FPCCI, proposed that the Pakistani business community be given visas swiftly and facilitated to explore the Malawian market. He further elaborated that Pakistan should also explore people-to-people and cultural relations with Malawi as some of the Pakistani businessmen have established significant footprints in Malawi, and Muslims are in big numbers in Malawi as well.
Mr. Aman Parachi, VP FPCCI, stressed that Malawi should enhance the volume of tea imports from Malawi to Pakistan. This is a win-win scenario: Pakistan is one of the top five importers of tea in the world, importing around $600 million of tea every year, and Pakistan can import price-competitive tea from Malawi.