Impact Of Trade Facilitation On Economic Growth Of Malawi

This study aims at assessing the impact of trade facilitation on economic growth of landlocked Malawi with the view of identifying non-tariff barriers.Employing Multiple Regression Model,the study's empirical investigation focuses on time series data from 2000 to 2016 for Malawi by measuring trade facilitation by means of indicators which include importation documents.Overall,results suggest a positive relationship between trade facilitation and economic growth of Malawi in terms of variables which include distance to frontier,market size,time to import and export.However,results of other variables suggest that trade facilitation is not making much needed positive significant effect on economic growth due to numerous importation documents and other non-tariff barriers which increase transactional trade costs.For instance,the results suggest that economic growth decreases by 0.91 percent for a 1 percent increase in the costs of importation documents and also decreases by 62% for 1 percent increase of cost to export.The study is of great significance and makes a number of contributions to literature which include contributing to the limited the literature which we have on impact of trade facilitation on economic growth for developing countries,advancing understanding of trade facilitation of landlocked countries and discovery of new knowledge as it is being conducted almost when the World witnessed the landmark coming into force of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement on February 22,2017.The study recommends that various trade agencies in landlocked countries,Malawi in particular must coordinate and interlink so that there is no duplication of work and documents to realize economic growth plus ratification of trade facilitation agreement to reap benefits of trade facilitation which include diversification of exports.