New Dawn for Malawi Could Spur Growth for Coatings Market

Malawi’s economy has been going through tough times over the last five years. Analysts are blaming the trend for the suppressed spending by both public and private consumers, especially on new infrastructure such as the government-backed affordable housing scheme and other transportation construction projects.

Malawians and the country’s trade partners are likely to be more optimistic with the election of a new government in September 2025. Meanwhile, investors and consumers are anticipating a fresh beginning for most sectors in the economy, including the manufacture, distribution and consumption of paints and coatings.

The recent economic challenges for Malawi has partly been blamed on the infamous Cyclone Freddy that constrained agricultural growth and restricted power generation to a mere one-third of the country’s potential, slowing the expansion of infrastructure and industrial establishments. The slowed consumption of paints and coatings has also been linked to fiscal mismanagement and corruption that constrained growth. The impact is still reverberating in Malawi’s diverse industrial consumers, including architectural, wood, protective, general industrial, transportation and packaging.

Malawi’s Economy

The World Bank, a major development partner of Malawi, says the country’s economy is “in a deep and protracted crisis marked by elevated inflation, declining living standards, and high rates of food insecurity.”

Malawi’s economic growth, the bank says, declined from an average of 4.1% for the 2011-2019 period to 2.2% since 2020, a trend that has led to falling incomes for the average Malawians, hence subduing expenditure in sectors such as housing, education and healthcare. These are ranked among the high consumers of building materials, especially
protective coatings.

But, in September 2025, Malawi appears to be entering a new era after the government, which has been associated with economic uncertainty characterized by elevated inflation, shortages of foreign exchange, and high food prices, was voted out of power and a new one elected with a pledge to increase budgetary expenditure especially in power generation, mining, and economic infrastructure such as railway, roads, airports, and inland water transport.

The incoming government is led by former Malawian president Peter Mutharika, who won by 56.8% of the total votes cast Sept. 16, 2025. It concurs with the World Bank view on Malawi’s economy, saying the country’s “macroeconomy has been unstable.”

“Between 2021 and 2024, the inflation rate averaged 25 percent and increased to 34.2 percent in the first three months of 2025 and is feared to remain elevated till August 2025,” says a statement by Mutharika’s outfit, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

However, the incoming government has pledged to invest heavily on new physical infrastructure, modernize existing ones and rope in the private sector, especially in expanding the mining industry, which requires coatings solutions to cushion the mining equipment from wear, corrosion, and other environmental challenges.

The new leadership has committed to put in place “relevant governance and mining legal frameworks and develop the skills that can support high value minerals, which will be linked to high-end local production that will be key for high-value export and import substitution like steel manufacturing.” 

The commitment is expected to spur growth of the manufacturing sector, with the incoming government saying it believes “in a strong manufacturing sector with strong forward and backward linkages to develop a vibrant knowledge-based economy.”

Transportation Sector

Furthermore, the DPP government is expected to invest in expanding and modernizing the country’s transportation sector. This is part of the proposed National Transport Master Plan, which the DPP government developed and launched when the incoming president Mutharika, a former Washington law professor, was in office between 2014-2020.

In the drive to enhance connectivity, reduce transportation costs, and improve trade competitiveness, the incoming government has given priority to the rehabilitation of the Nacala and Sena railway corridors. This links Malawi with the coastline of neighboring Mozambique and revamps railway links from the cities of Blantyre and Lilongwe, a development likely to spur demand for metal coatings for the rail network infrastructure and metal coatings for rail carriages.

Moreover, Malawi’s planned rehabilitation and construction of major roads across the country would, in the next five years, boost the consumption of traffic coatings in preventative maintenance on busy road surfaces, especially in Mzuzu, Lilongwe, Zomba and Blantyre cities.

The incoming government also says it will invest in the construction of flyovers and interchanges “to address congestion in the cities and business places and modernize central bus terminals in the four major cities and two municipalities.”

Malawi’s education sector, a key coatings consumer for the maintenance of institutions’ roofs, concrete structures, walls and equipment, such as including pipes and tanks, is also expected to be a leading driver in the growth of the country’s paints and coatings market in the next five years should the new government’s development pledges come
to pass.

Education and Housing

Some of the proposed projects that are likely to increase demand for quality functional and aesthetic coatings include the construction of new schools, expansion and rehabilitation of existing ones as well as new education centers for children with special needs.

The plan to revamp Malawi’s Decent and Affordable Housing Subsidy Programme, which targets the provision of low-cost, durable and habitable housing for rent and sale through the Malawi Housing Corporation, will likely trigger demand for quality coating solutions for the protection of concrete surfaces as well as decorative solutions to improve the aesthetic value of the new houses.

And in what is expected to be a major boost for the protective coatings in the optimization of the performance of energy and infrastructure assets, Malawi’s incoming government has listed several power infrastructure projects to be completed by 2030 through public private partnerships with independent power producers to invest in power generation from sources such as hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, natural gas, coal
and co-generation.

But for paints and coatings market players in Malawi such as Tropical, Rainbow, Valmore, HCI and Monolux, to reap from this great growth promise, the new government has to go beyond mere pledges and urgently implement economic reform measures to restore investor confidence and hence attract investment in the proposed infrastructure projects.