On various occasions and in various places in southern Africa I asked about Michelin XZL 14.00R20. In South Africa I was told that these were military items and that I had to obtain permission from the military. I did not pursue this further because this procedure seemed rather complicated to me. In Maun, Botswana, the MAN representative assured me that he could organize the tires for me, but unfortunately not in the time I needed. The solution I implemented was to buy the tires in Germany and have them shipped to Malawi.

Cost in Malawi 2017
Purchase EUR 3 000.00 CHF 3 266.16
Transportz USD 1 450.00 CHF 1 411.85
Clearance USD 450.00 CHF 438.16
Inspection MWK 30 000.00 CHF 41.36
Import Duty MWK 605 391.00 CHF 834.63
Import VAT MWK 499 447.00 CHF 688.57
Processing MWK 10 000.00 CHF 13.79
Total 4 tires CHF 6 694.52
per tire CHF 1 673.63

The tires were collected from the supplier on January 24, 2017 and declared in Lilongwe on May 23, 2017. So it took the shipping company four months. When we returned to Lilongwe in the autumn, we were able to simply pick up the tires from the forwarding agent’s warehouse without any further costs or fuss. The entire forwarding from picking up to and including customs clearance and storage was handled by Worldwide Movers GmbH, Baslerstr. 13, 64546 Mörfelden-Walldorf, Germany, phone: +49 6105 44774 wwmmw@gmx.de to our complete satisfaction.