Malawi’s trade balance is structurally in deficit. Malawi's trade remains heavily dependent on agriculture, and its exports and imports reflect this reliance on primary and intermediate goods: tobacco accounts for more than half of total exports, as the country is one of the world's largest producers of tobacco. Other major exports include tea, sugar, and agricultural products in general. Imports are led by refined petroleum (7.2% of total imports), machinery, transport equipment, fertilizers, spare parts and medicaments.

The Malawi 2063 (MW2063) is Malawi's national vision through which Malawians aspire to transform the country into an inclusively wealthy and self-reliant nation by the year 2063. It is anchored on the three pillars namely; Agricultural Productivity and Commercialization, Industrialization and Urbanization. The MW2063 will be operationalized through four medium term strategies of 10 years each, starting with the MW 2063 First 10-year Implementation Plan (MIP-1) from 2021 to 2030. The MIP-1 is a collection of minimum catalytic interventions that have been determined to contribute to two key milestones of graduating the country to a middle-income status and meeting most of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

The exchange rate of the kwacha undergoes fixed periodical adjustments, but since 1994 the exchange rate has floated. In 2005, administrative measures were put in place to peg the exchange rate with other currencies. Banknotes are issued by the Reserve Bank of Malawi.

Malawi central bank implemented a significant policy adjustment on February 1st, 2024, raising the policy rate by 200 basis points from 24 percent to 26 percent. This measure aims to address the persistent inflationary pressures, which have surpassed the targeted range of five percent. The central bank however kept Lombard rate at 20 basis points above the policy rate and the Liquidity Reserve Requirement (LRR) ratio at 7.75 percent for domestic currency deposits and 3.75 percent for foreign currency deposits.

The Malawi Stock Exchange (MSE), has been in existence since 1994 but started equity trading in November 1996 when it first listed National Insurance Company Limited (NICO). Prior to the listing of the first company, the major activities that were being undertaken were the provision of a facility for secondary market trading in Government of Malawi securities, namely Treasury Notes and Local wp-signup.phped Stock. 16 companies are listed on the MSE.

The unemployment rate in Malawi decreased to 5.60 percent in 2022 from 5.70 percent in 2021. The unemployment rate in Malawi averaged 4.99 percent from 1991 until 2022, reaching an all-time high of 5.70 percent in 2020 and a record low of 4.80 percent in 1991. The top three sectors that employ more people are agriculture, forestry, and fishing, construction and transportation and storage according to NSO 2018.

The economy of Malawi is heavily dependent on agriculture, which employs over 64% of the population, and it is vulnerable to external shocks, particularly climatic shocks. Agriculture accounted for about one-third of GDP and about 80% of export revenue.