After reading the Times Newspaper Article on the AIP program (https://times.mw/red-flag-on-affordable-inputs-programme/), especially looking at the need to import 700,000 tonnes of fertilizer costing $800 per tonne, I thought $560 million was a lot to spend on fertilizer imports every year and yet such an amount could possibly be invested in building local fertilizer manufacturing plants. I understand we have two fertilizer manufacturing plants Optichem and Malawi Fertilizer Company. The problem is their combined output is 160,000 tonnes per year. It's possible we need several manufacturing plants to meet the required demand of 700,000 tonnes.
After a google search, I found several companies from China advertising fertilizer manufacturing plants. I managed to get a quote from one. The quotation has the following cost analysis:
- Equipment costs: USD 1,245,570
- Workshop size: 5760 m2
- Workers: 8-15 person / batch
- Power: 845 kw; real power: 590 kw
- HS code: 8479 8999 90
The Quoted solution is able to manufacture 30 to 40 tonnes per hour. For an 8-hour day and 260 working days per year, one plant should be able to manufacture 62,400 to 83,200 tonnes. This means that we need 9 to 12 manufacturing plants built to meet the demand of 700,000 metric tonnes per year. This should be a total cost of between $11,210,130 and $14,946,840. This seems a much better amount spent once on fertilizer manufacturing plants than to spend $560,000,000 every year.
Those who are interested in obtaining the full quotation can email me their interest at kondwa@gmail.com.
