At the invitation of the President of India, the President of Malawi, H.E. Prof. Bingu wa Mutharika accompanied by the first lady, will pay a State Visit to India from November 2-7, 2010. President Mutharika’s delegation will include six Ministers of his Cabinet. A large business delegation as well as senior officials would also be part of President Mutharika’s delegation.

This would be President Mutharika’s first visit to India as the President of Malawi. President Mutharika has studied at Delhi University in the 1960s.

President Mutharika would call on the President who will also host a banquet in his honour. He would also meet the Hon’ble Vice President of India, Shri. M. Hamid Ansari and hold delegation level talks with Hon’ble Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India. The Minister of External Affairs, Shri S.M. Krishna, and the Leader of the Opposition, Smt. Sushma Swaraj would also call on him.

At the delegation level talks, the two sides are expected to discuss a wide range of subjects of bilateral interest covering economic cooperation, trade and investment, infrastructure, mining, coal, agriculture, micro, small and medium enterprises, and human resource development.

India’s relations with Malawi have been close and friendly. The visit is expected to further strengthen the bilateral relations. The process of revitalization of the bilateral relations between India and Malawi saw the visit of the Vice President of India to Malawi in January 2010.

President Mutharika as the chairperson of African Union in the current year has played a positive role in strengthening the ties between India and the African Union. His visit would provide an opportunity to enhance not only our engagement bilaterally with Malawi but to reiterate our commitment to work with Africa as a whole. We see in Malawi a valuable democratic partner in Africa. It has played an energetic role in COMESA, SADC and provided leadership to the African Union.

The Pan-African e-Network Project has been implemented in Malawi and is an important aspect of capacity building and support to the education and health sectors. Malawi is also a beneficiary of the new scholarship schemes offered to the African countries in the areas of agricultural sciences and scientific research.

India provided a line of credit of US $ 30 million to Malawi in year 2008 which was used for irrigation, grain storage, tobacco threshing and one village one product projects. A line of credit of US $ 50 million was announced during the visit of the Vice President in January, 2010. Malawi has sent proposals for utilisation of the line of credit for projects dealing with setting up of cotton ginning & spinning facilities; green belt initiative; and one village one product programme.

The bilateral trade is US $ 185 million and is increasing by the utilization of Malawi of greater opportunities in the Indian market. Efforts to find complementarities for increasing bilateral trade between India and Malawi will be made. Malawi has joined the Duty Free Tariff Preference Scheme announced during the first India Africa Forum Summit in April 2008 and it has a positive impact on the increase of Malawi’s export to India.

President Mutharika and his delegation would meet with Indian business leaders during a Business luncheon meeting to be organised by Confederation of Indian Industry, Federation of Indian Chambers of commerce and Industry and ASSOCHAM.

President Mutharika would also visit Agra and Goa.

New Delhi
November 1, 2010