Barriers to Business Expansion in Malawi’s New Policy Environment
This paper addresses the need for prioritizing constraints facing the Malawi private sector, examines the sector’s environment and identifies the most important problems perceived by firms as impeding their expansion. It is based on a study conducted in 1999 by Associates for International Resources and Development (AIRD) in partnership with Millennium Consulting Group and the Malawi Investment Promotion Agency (MIPA). The survey and analysis of this report are exploratory since the sample was small and the resources too limited to do an extensive examination. The primary value of the study, however, is that it asks the private sector what it thinks are its major constraints, prioritizes these and measures their magnitude to the extent possible, analyzes the most important of these constraints, and recommends ways in which they might be overcome. 1 MIPA is a parastatal mandated by the Investment Promotion Act of 1991 to promote, encourage, attract, and facilitate local and foreign investment.