victor mbewe : positive financial and economic developments in malawi speech by mr victor mbewe, governor of the reserve bank of malawi, at the sovereign credit rating dissemination conference, lilongwe, 16 march 2007. * * * the minister of finance, hon. goodall gondwe, m. p. the minister of trade, industry and private sector development, hon. ken lipenga, m. p. his excellency, the us ambassador to malawi, mr alan eastham members of the diplomatic corp heads of missions ( development partners ) members of parliament the chief secretary to the president and cabinet secretary to the treasury principal secretaries heads of parastatal organisations heads of private sector industries mr charles seville and veronica kalema from fitch rating agency representatives of the civil society distinguished invited guests representatives of electronic and print media ladies and gentlemen i feel greatly honoured and happy to stand here today at this very important dissemination conference where malawi has attained yet another economic development milestone indicating an improvement in the country ’ s creditworthiness. credit rating is one of the areas where malawi was considered lagging behind under the millennium challenge account. honourable minister, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, since the last credit rating in december 2005, where malawi was rated at ccc, a lot of progress has been made and it was therefore imperative that a fresh rating exercise be conducted to determine our current status. to this effect, fitch rating agency was engaged by millennium challenge corporation to conduct the rating between 4th and 8th december 2006. reserve bank of malawi as an implementing agency for credit rating for the country, successfully coordinated this exercise. to begin with, it is worthwhile to mention that credit rating is an indication of the ability and willingness of a country to pay its external debt on the original terms. with a sovereign credit rating, the country is signalling to the rest of the world especially international investors its readiness to participate in the global economy by opening itself for public scrutiny and foster transparency in the collection and dissemination of information. a credit rating also helps to promote realistic monetary and fiscal policies and adherence to liberalization policies and reform efforts in keeping up with peer group countries and the global economy. furthermore, the business world uses a sovereign credit rating as the benchmark to evaluate current and potential risks in a nation's economic environment they desire to invest in. as alluded to earlier, many positive developments have taken place in malawi since the last rating in 2005. among these are cancellation of malawi ’ s debt by both multilateral and bilateral creditors

, government officials, members of the private sector, the donor community and non - governmental organisations. these officials spared their time to grant interviews to fitch rating agency. let me also applaud my staff at rbm for compiling quality data used by fitch in the rating exercise, some of which was supplied by national statistical office and ministry of finance. finally, let me thank casals and associates through the millenuim challenge corporation, for their financial as well as logistical support they have provided to make this conference a success. thank you for your attention and god bless you.