Malawi's plans to create a specialized commercial court responsible for settling all commercial and business disputes has come close to reality with financial assistance from the European Union (EU).

Malawi and the EU signed a 28 million euro (34 million U.S. dollars) financing agreement on January 27 through which the EU would support the country's various activities aimed at promoting the rule of law including creation of the commercial court.

Press and Information Officer at the Delegation of the European Commission to Malawi, Maria Karadenizli, told Xinhua Tuesday that the current EU support was, among other activities, aimed at establishing a dedicated commercial court to handle business- related cases such as taxation, banking and trade.

"The overall objective of the agreement is to strengthen good governance and democratic processes in Malawi as a basis to achieve accelerated economic growth and poverty reduction," she said.

Malawi High Court Registrar, Sylvester Kalembera, told Xinhua that the commercial court would be allocated a total of six judges with four based in Malawi commercial capital Blantyre and the other two in capital Lilongwe.

Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry ( MCCCI) Chief Executive, Chancellor Kaferapanjira, hailed the Malawi government for responding to the needs of the country's private sector as creation of the commercial court would help hasten the period of resolving commercial and business disputes.

"The present court system is not benefiting the private sector because political issues are taking precedence over commercial and business matters and sometimes business or commercial cases take as long as two to three years before they are resolved," he said.

The creation of the commercial court is one of the economic policies that impoverished Malawi plans to implement as one way of strengthening the country's business environment in accordance with the three-year Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility arrangement that the southern African country entered into with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in August last year.

Streamlining business licensing and strengthening tax administration are other economic policies that the government plans to undertake to strengthen the business environment.

Source: Xinhua