It is at least an opportunity for Malawi to Chair SADC. Why? Malawi will have the chance to push for issues that it feels hinder it to benefit from this peculiar regional integration. Malawi mainly trades with South Africa in the region for both exports and imports. It should, therefore, push for an agenda that could unlock its export to the immediate neighbouring countries as well. These countries are Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania and even Zimbabwe.
It is a fact that Malawi trades a lot more than what is captured in statistics with these neighbouring countries but most of the transactions are informal hence unrecorded. The porous borders are conduit for such informal trade. Otherwise why is it that after every bumper crop harvest Malawi suffers from food insecurity despite the various export bans of food crops.
Anyway, I would suggest that Malawi should push for issues that could lower cost of exports such as competitive transportation, telecommunication, flight and ICT services (but other countries could laugh at this because its own policies are anti-competitive in these sub-sectors); quick development ant launch of Zambezi Waterway Inland Port as well as rail network to Zambia and Mozambique ( but this could lead to influx of imports as it will be cheaper to bring them in too); joint tourism 'package' promotion (but what if payments are made in the more tourism developed countries): free movement of production resources( but Malawi ease of doing business is appalling few my opt for it as a destination) etc
Yeah, the chairpersonship will give Malawi visibility but its own leadership and policies will help it gain from the preferential regional market. This is true with the other struggling SADC countries. Mining is not the best option. The best option is knowing the tricks of value addition and value chain linkages- upward and downward linkages that support SMEs.
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