By Pemphero Malimba:
The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) says it is making strides in its quest to develop a device assembly plant in the country.
Macra Director General Daud Suleman told The Daily Times that they are at the procurement stage.
“The process is under procurement. We have now enlisted the services of a consultant, who is helping us to build up a business plan so that we can now go to the market to see how we can bring it in,” Suleman said.
He said he was hopeful that the device assembly plant could help lower the cost of smartphones in the country.
“We should be importing different parts of mobile phones and using technical colleges to assemble these devices in the country because if we assemble these devices locally, the prices (of smartphones) will be lower and, therefore, we are going to have more people that have their hands on these smart devices,” Suleman said.
He said Macra was also undertaking the plan from a regional perspective.
“The second option is that we are exploring [the idea of establishing a] regional device assembly plant; regional in the sense that we should include demand from Malawi, Zambia Zimbabwe so that instead of just being a Malawi investment, we can look at four nations investing together,” he said.
He observed that the high cost of smartphones is not hindering Malawi alone.
“The issue of cost of devices is not just a Malawi problem, it is also a problem in our neighbouring countries and, therefore, if we can come up with a plan to develop these local assembly plants within the region, that can also help,” Suleman said.
Meanwhile, Consumers Association of Malawi Executive Director John Kapito has said the authority needs to be realistic when undertaking the move.
Kapito said assembling devices in the country may not guarantee reduced prices of the devices on the market.
“Assembling issues are not new but the question we should be asking is, where are we going to be importing these materials? I think that will dictate the pricing on the market,” Kapito said.
Currently, out of 14 million registered Sim cards, one million are working on smartphones in the country.
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