Malawi is a landlocked country in southeastern Africa, endowed with spectacular highlands and extensive lakes, and occupies a narrow, curving strip of land along the East African Rift Valley. Lake Nyasa, known in Malawi as Lake Malawi, accounts for more than one-fifth of the country’s total area. It is bordered by Tanzania to the north, Lake Malawi to the east, Mozambique to the east and south, and Zambia to the west. 

Most of Malawi’s population engages in cash-crop and subsistence agriculture. The country’s exports consist of the produce of both small landholdings and large tea and tobacco estates. Agricultural products constitute a large proportion of the Malawian export revenue; the most important of these are tobacco, sugar, tea and cotton.

Malawi has a population of 18 million, and its capital city is Lilongwe. With an area of 118,484 square kilometers, the country’s official languages include both English and Chichewa. 

Malawi is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) since 1970, and it has a plethora of laws regulating intellectual property.

There are 10 full-service commercial banks. The two largest banks – National Bank of Malawi and Standard Bank – collectively command 51% of all banking deposits.

The Reserve Bank of Malawi, the country’s central bank, fosters the stability, integrity and efficiency of the monetary, financial and payment systems through the formulation and implementation of sound monetary and macro-prudential policies that take into account national interest.

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Though foreign exchange markets operate freely, the Reserve Bank of Malawi has the mandate to manage the exchange rate.