Two pieces of legislation enacted in late 2023 and early 2024 materially change the formal framework for foreign investment in Malawi.

The Special Economic Zones Act

Parliament approved the SEZ bill in December 2023 and the President signed it into law in January 2024. The Act establishes a legal framework for Special Economic Zones — designated areas offering specific regulatory and fiscal incentives for investment in manufacturing, processing, and related activities.

SEZs have been used effectively across Sub-Saharan Africa to attract foreign direct investment into export-oriented manufacturing: Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Zambia have all used SEZ frameworks to build new industrial capacity. Malawi’s SEZ Act creates the legal basis for the same approach.

The practical development of physical SEZ infrastructure — sites, utilities, access roads — follows the legal framework and will take time. But the Act establishes the investment protection guarantees, tax treatment, and operational rules that investors need to evaluate the opportunity.

The Investment and Export Promotion Act 2024

The Investment and Export Promotion Act strengthened the legal mandate of the Malawi Investment and Trade Centre (MITC) and established a One-Stop Service Shop for investment approvals. The Act replaced older, more fragmented legislation and is designed to make the investment approval process more predictable and transparent.

Key features:

  • A single regulatory window through MITC for investment approvals, replacing the previous need to engage multiple agencies separately
  • Strengthened investor protection provisions
  • Clearer rules on investment incentives, including tax holidays and import duty exemptions for qualifying investors
  • An explicit mandate for export promotion alongside investment facilitation

What this means for companies considering Malawi

The legislative reforms do not change the ground-level realities of operating in Malawi — forex constraints, energy unreliability, and agency capacity limitations remain real. But they do improve the formal framework within which investment decisions are made and protected.

For companies doing legal due diligence on a Malawi investment:

  • The MITC One-Stop Shop is the correct first point of contact for formal investment registration and incentive qualification
  • Investment protection provisions under the new Act are more explicit than under the previous framework
  • SEZ status — once sites are developed — will offer meaningful fiscal and regulatory advantages for export-oriented operations

Our read

Good legislation is necessary but not sufficient. The Investment and Export Promotion Act and SEZ Act represent genuine improvements to the formal investment framework. Whether they translate into smoother on-the-ground experience depends on implementation — which is where local knowledge and relationships matter most. We track both closely.

Sources: UNCTAD Investment Policy Monitor, U.S. State Department Investment Climate Statement 2024, MITC.