CFTC, Tanzania FCC exchange MoU

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Created on Tuesday, 21 April 2015 11:22

Minister of Industry and Trade, Honourable Joseph Mwanamvekha(R)  and FCC Chairperson Professor Samuel Wangwe(L) and exchanging MoU Documents.

The Competition and Fair Trading Commission (CFTC), on Friday, exchanged Memorandum of Understanding with their Tanzania counterparts, the Fair Competition Commission (FCC), during a ceremony that was held in Lilongwe.

The CFTC and the FCC signed a cooperation agreement in December 2014 in Dar-es-salaam, a pact aimed at strengthening enforcement of competition and consumer protection laws in Malawi and Tanzania through staff exchange, training and information sharing.

Speaking during the ceremony, Minister of Industry and Trade, Joseph Mwanamvekha said  the competition authorities of the two countries need to cooperate not only in dealing with cross-border anti-competitive business practices but also in improving the effectiveness of implementation of their mandates.

“A more competitive private sector in Tanzania will likely improve the welfare of consumers in Malawi. Similarly, a more efficient private sector in Malawi will have welfare-enhancing effects on the Tanzanian economy. It is in this regard that I welcome the formalisation of cooperation between the FCC and the CFTC through the Memorandum of Understanding which was signed in Dar-es-Salaam,” said Mwanamvekha.

The minister pointed out that the value of the agreement lays in the actualisation of measures outlined in the agreement.

Speaking during the exchange, CFTC Executive Director Charlotte Wezi Malonda said the MoU contains an operational framework for how the institutions will relate.

 “The objectives of the MoU include to establish the manner in which we will cooperate with each other in the enforcement of our respective competition and consumer protection laws; to facilitate information sharing that will enable the effective application of competition and consumer protection laws and to promote better understanding of our countries competition enforcement and consumer policies and activities,” said Malonda.

FCC Chairperson Professor Samuel Wangwe who led a six-member delegation on a study tour to Malawi, in his remarks said Malawi and Tanzania face similar competition and consumer challenges, particularly because the two countries have been  trading partners for a long time.

"This agreement will strengthen and improve the trading relationship trading interactions between our two countries. This is why the FCC and the CFTC found it worthwhile to sign the cooperation agreement,” said Wangwe.