Online Reporter
Munyaradzi Hwengwere
In 2025, Zimbabwe recorded its smallest trade deficit in years, at US$404 million.
This is a quarter of the average US$1,6 billion incurred over the past five years.
In the same year, our exports rose to US$9,7 billion, the highest in years, driven mainly by rising commodity prices and mining, which together accounted for US$7,6 billion.
If this trend continues, most of Zimbabwe’s economic challenges would disappear.
Achieving Vision 2030 at the high end of US$13 935 per capita would be within reach.
Yet paradoxically, the 2025 trade figures put the key structural weaknesses of the economy in plain sight. Without resolving these, our country will remain caught in a perpetual “developing-country trap” in which growth does not trickle down to the rest of society.
Over 80 percent of our exports consist of raw and semi-processed minerals and tobacco.
Our country exports very little in the way of value-added products. In contrast, our imports cover a broad range of products, including areas where we should—or once did—have a competitive advantage. We still import grains and oilseeds.
Even with the capacity to produce our own fertilisers, our import costs remain high. As the mining and agricultural sectors expand, our demand for machinery, chemicals, energy and petroleum products has also grown.
The demand for imported cars has increased considerably, despite local assembly plants operating at low capacity.
Our imports are thus racing to weaken our export capabilities, fuelled primarily by a growing industry and societal demand for foreign products at lower prices.
This demand suggests a short-sighted mindset, blind to the reality that the dollars we use to import are backed by finite resources and an unpredictable commodity cycle.
Should mineral resources be depleted or commodity prices tank, as they occasionally do, our country will be left exposed.
Our national trade strategy needs to focus on preserving value and minimising imports of all those products we can do without.The statistics are sobering.
While mining generates billions in export revenues, it also increases the import bill.
According to the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe, of mining’s total order bill of over US$3 billion, less than 15 percent of goods are made in Zimbabwe.
While local wheat production is increasing and local consumer taste is surging, our total grain imports in 2025 exceeded US$700 million.
The previous year (which was perhaps an exception due to drought), grain imports exceeded US$1 billion.What needs to be done is clear. We must tie mining growth to specific manufacturing targets.
Secondly, in as much as Zimbabwe still lacks gas and petroleum capacity, efficiency gains in that sector must not be discounted. We can further reduce our energy dependence and import costs.
In agriculture, it stands to reason that we must prioritise self-sufficiency and reduce or eliminate dependence on produce that we can grow locally.
Why should we continue to import oilseeds? Why should we keep importing unrefined edible oil when the raw materials used to produce it can all be grown here?
If this is done and we maintain 2025 import levels, it should be possible by 2030 to cut our import bill by half, saving a cumulative US$5 billion.
At the very least, we must set annual targets for this reduction initiative.
If we succeed, the downstream effects will be huge. Our manufacturing sector will grow beyond Zimbabwe’s borders.
Capital to fund projects will become available. Our youths, who make up about 70 percent of the population, will no longer worry about finding quality jobs.
Even the Treasury’s current challenge to increase tax collection becomes easier.
It all begins with trade. This import bill can and should be tamed.
