MCCCI in Favour of an Agri-based 2023/24 National Budget

Chancellor Kaferapanjira
The Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCCI) a partnership of enterprises and associations representing all sectors of the economy in the country has presented pro agriculture views on the 2023/24 fiscal budget during the pre-budget consultation meeting in Blantyre on 9th January, 2023.

According to Chancellor Kaferapanjira, MCCCI’s Chief Executive officer government should grant Value Added Tax (VAT) waiver on ESCOM charges for approved investors in irrigated farming operations who produce exportable products in order to promote irrigation agriculture.

He further said that Government should lead in establishing Mega farms and provide enough support to those producing in the 2022/23 agricultural season and that all such Mega farms should include relevant value addition.

MCCCI says Government should allocate a specified proportion of Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) resources during the phase-out stages of the programme to a few commercial farms that should feed the country and generate surplus for export or substitute traditional imports. The presentation also asks Government to promote other export-oriented crops such as wheat, sunflower and macadamia production instead of sticking to the traditional ones. MCCCI says that in all such cases appropriate incentives for value addition should be put in place

In order to promote export diversification into high export value chains, Kaferapanjira says Government should consider extending for Macadamia production the period in which one can carryover non- taxable losses from six to 10 years, the age around which macadamia nut trees reach maturity.

Kaferapanjira has urged the Ministry of Finance to remove 3 percent withholding tax requirement on subsistence farmers with low volumes supplying to companies who would ordinarily not fall under the tax threshold.

According to the Budget statement of the 2022/23 fiscal year presented in parliament buy the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Hon. Sosten Gwengwe, agriculture, water development and climate change sectors combined were allocated K447.66 billion representing 3.9 percent of GDP and 15.8 percent of the total budget. These resources catered for wages and salaries, operations, including Affordable Inputs Programme, and development projects in the Ministries of Agriculture; Forestry and Natural Resources; and Water and Sanitation.

Some tobacco farmers in Malawi irrigated their crop in this current season as they wanted to avert the resurgence of the 2021/22 calamities of dry spell that befell most farmers. This situation reduced the volume for burley in 2022 to 85 million kilograms from a buyer demand of 130 million kilograms in that year.

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