A 2019 African Trade report from the African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) shows that Malawi’s trade balance with the rest of the world has improved to $1.42 billlion (about K1 trillion) from $1.31 billion (about K 970 billion), translating to merchandise exports growth by 119% to $2.52.

According to the report, trade between Malawi and other  African countries grew by 35% to $330 million (about K244 billion) while imports grew by 1.1% to $720 million (about K548 billion). The news follows local reports, that reported that that Malawi has been registering a poor trade deficit as the trade balance registered minus $525.1 million in the third quarter of 2018, making it worse than the second quarter’s deficit of $419.6 million. Both deficits were higher than the third quarter of 2017 which registered minus $372.3 million.

Afreximbank president Benedict Oramah, said that in the short-term, Africa is expected to remain on a strong economic growth path, with expanding aggregate output and improving trade performance in 2019. “To mitigate the potential adverse effects of these risks on African trade and growth, this report argues for a speedy transition towards the digital economy.” he says in the report, “This would both increase productivity and value addition across the different stages of production, and further expand Africa-South and intra-African trade, taking advantage of economies of scale offered by the African Continental Free Trade Area,”.