Nacala States face delivery test as budgets stall project

Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia are under pressure to turn years of Nacala Corridor commitments into concrete projects with technical teams now setting deadlines, responsibilities and budgets for implementation by June next year.

Representatives of the three countries meeting in Maputo, Mozambique have put the outstanding Chipata-Serenje railway project and agreements on agricultural standards and quality assurance among priorities requiring action.

The four-day Tripartite Meeting of the Nacala Development Corridor Sector Clusters, which started on Tuesday, is reviewing progress on directives from the 10th Nacala Development Corridor Management Committee (NDCMC) meeting and updating sector action plans, according to a press statement made available to The Nation.

A cross-section of participants during

the meeting. | Nation

Ministry of Transport and Public Works director of policy and planning Victor Lungu, who is representing Malawi, is quoted as having stated that the exercise should move the corridor from commitments to implementation.

“Our deliberations should produce clear priorities, realistic timelines and a shared understanding of who will take each action forward,” he said.

The proposed Chipata-Serenje connection is expected to strengthen Zambia’s link to the Nacala system while the three countries are also pursuing rehabilitation and expansion of railway infrastructure in Malawi.

In December last year, The Nation reported that the three countries were preparing a declaration covering rehabilitation of Malawi’s existing railway and construction of a new rail link to Chipata and Serenje in Zambia.

The current meeting is therefore expected to outline the next steps on the project, alongside the pending memoranda of understanding on sanitary and phytosanitary measures in agriculture and standards, quality assurance, accreditation and metrology.

Lungu said the three countries should openly assess what has been achieved and confront outstanding constraints.

“Our shared responsibility is to build a transport and logistics network that connects our countries, facilitates trade and supports sustainable economic transformation,” he said.

Nacala Development Corridor Secretariat executive director Angelo Eduardo Mondlane said the corridor’s success depends on more than roads and railways, requiring cooperation in trade facilitation, border management, investment promotion and infrastructure planning.

He said the secretariat would monitor implementation of decisions reached during the meeting and flag matters requiring further technical consideration or referral to the NDCMC or Council of Ministers.

“The value of this meeting will depend not only on the quality of our discussions, but also on our shared commitment to carrying forward what we agree,” said Mondlane.

The focus comes against a backdrop of repeated calls over the years for the three countries to remove infrastructure, regulatory and bureaucratic bottlenecks that have limited the corridor’s potential.

In 2023, The Nation also reported that Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique were challenged to eliminate bottlenecks by improving infrastructure and legal and regulatory frameworks to facilitate the movement of goods and people.

The three countries subsequently signed a trilateral agreement in October 2023 to strengthen management of the corridor and facilitate movement of cargo.

The Nacala route has since demonstrated its potential for Malawi. In 2024, increased cargo traffic along the corridor helped the Malawi Revenue Authority raise collections at Liwonde Inland Port in Machinga to about K2 billion a month from K500 million the previous year. Fertiliser, fuel, wheat and other bulk cargo were being moved by rail from Nacala.

A train also delivered 580 000 litres of diesel from Nacala to Lilongwe in July 2024, the first such delivery to the capital in 21 years, highlighting the potential of rail to reduce transport costs and improve supply chains.

However, the regional network remains incomplete.

Previous Nacala meetings have identified bureaucratic delays, inconsistent customs procedures and infrastructure gaps as some of the obstacles to seamless regional trade.

For Malawi, a landlocked country that relies heavily on transport corridors to access international markets and bring in essential imports, the Nacala route is among the shortest and potentially most cost-effective link to the sea, while improved rail connectivity offers the prospect of lowering the cost and turnaround time of moving cargo.

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