Online Reporter
Mahwani Kangausaru.
Seventeen years after Zimbabwe held a landmark COMESA Summit in Victoria Falls, the regional bloc is back in the country at a time when the major economic concern has switched from the opening of markets to producing adequate commodities for sale within those markets.
The 13th Summit of the COMESA Authority of Heads of State and Government was held in Victoria Falls on 7-8 June 2009 and the COMESA Customs Union was formally launched on 7 June. Zimbabwe will now host the 25th COMESA Summit in Harare from 19-22 October 2026 culminating with the Heads of State and Government Summit on 22 October. The theme is appropriate: “One Market, One Future: Advancing Inclusive Industrialization, Investment and Regional Integration in COMESA.”
The figures indicate just how much COMESA has changed but also how much business remains unfinished.
When the leaders met at Victoria Falls in 2009, the most recent complete COMESA statistics were for 2008. Intra-COMESA trade grew considerably from US$3.1 billion in 2000 to US$14.3 billion in 2008. However, overall COMESA commerce with the globe was about US$307.7 billion comprising US$157.1 billion in exports and US$150.6 billion in imports. Intra-regional trade accounted for barely 5 per cent of COMESA’s total trade.
Today, COMESA’s trade with the rest of the world has grown significantly. The COMESA Secretariat said exports to the globe were US$202 billion in 2024, imports were US$277 billion, and combined merchandise trade was over US$479 billion. But exports inside COMESA amounted to only about US$14 billion. Latest data published ahead of the Harare Summit show intra-COMESA commerce fell to roughly US$13 billion in 2025.
This analogy reveals the basic difficulty. Zimbabwe last hosted COMESA at a time when there has been a significant growth in overall international trade, but not commensurate growth in trade among COMESA members. The region continues to be much more connected to markets outside of COMESA than within.
This is fundamentally an industrialization issue.
The COMESA Ministers responsible for Industry and Investment on 8 September 2026 recognized this exact problem and noted that the region’s over-reliance on primary commodity exports, narrow export base, shallow manufacturing capacity and underdeveloped regional industrial value chains were major constraints.
Africa will not be able to achieve regional integration fully if it keeps on exporting minerals, agricultural commodities and other raw resources out of the continent and importing machinery, chemicals, processed foods, pharmaceuticals and finished consumer goods. Every unprocessed item shipped is a potential value addition, industrial employment and technological capability that could have been created in the region.
This is also where Rules of Origin – COMESA Rules of Origin is relevant. Shipping commodities from one COMESA country to another does not automatically give preferential access. Products must be eligible for COMESA origin.
The rules offer a variety of qualification options such as: goods entirely obtained in the member countries; non-originating materials not exceeding 60 per cent of the ex-works price; at least 35 per cent regional value content; meeting the necessary tariff change; or for products of special economic significance, meeting the relevant 25 per cent value criterion. Simple packing, mixing or assembly of imported components does not automatically grant COMESA origin.
And that is very important. The developmental gains from a regional free-trade agreement are greatest when member countries do produce goods satisfying the rules of origin. Otherwise governments could have preferential access to a market of hundreds of millions of people but no productive capacity to exploit it.
Zimbabwe is a case in point of the problem and the potential.
The COMESA 2009 Annual Report, including COMSTAT numbers, shows that Zimbabwe exported some US$283.9 million to COMESA and imported around US$75 million in 2008, on the eve of the Victoria Falls Summit. At the time, Zimbabwe was the sixth largest intra-regional exporter of COMESA.
Zimbabwe’s exports to COMESA reached US$222 million in 2025, up 10.4 percent from US$200.9 million in 2024 but still behind the US$229.5 million in 2023 and, importantly, the almost US$284 million recorded in 2008. Zimbabwe’s exports to COMESA destinations in 2025 was roughly US$131.4 million to Zambia.
That should sharpen the national discussion over industrialization.
COMESA had already calculated that Zimbabwe had potential to grow intra-COMESA trade by roughly US$4.1 billion, with options ranging from agricultural products to glass products and mineral-related exports.
The 2026 Summit should consequently be a place to transform regional market access into manufacturing, exports and jobs.
There are few places that better represent this opportunity than Bulawayo.
Once the industrial capital of Zimbabwe, the historic one, it was the center of significant textile and garment factories, engineering businesses, foundries, railroad workshops, food processors, leather makers, furniture producers and other industries. Its strategic location near regional transport links also makes it a natural platform for manufacturing for Southern and Eastern African markets.
Bulawayo’s industrial rebirth should therefore be explicitly tied to COMESA rather than seen as a solely domestic economic endeavor.
Zimbabwe’s target industries to meet COMESA origin requirements and build regional value chains: leather and footwear, textiles and clothing, engineering products, agricultural equipment, processed foods, pharmaceuticals, packaging, furniture, chemicals and mineral beneficiation.
Rather than exporting hides, minerals and agricultural commodities and importing completed products, Zimbabwe should progressively manufacture such things locally and sell them into COMESA.
The timing is very good. COMESA says by April 2026, 16 member nations were fully engaged in its Free Trade Area, Zimbabwe is among the countries already implementing the COMESA electronic Certificate of Origin.
The lesson from 2009 to 2026 is clearly evident from the trade statistics themselves: market integration has outpaced productive integration.
Harare should therefore build on the foundation laid by Victoria Falls 17 years ago. The next phase of COMESA integration must be about manufacturing, regional supply chains, beneficiation and much more trade in African-made commodities.
This provides an opportunity for Zimbabwe to once again establish Bulawayo at the center of an industrial economy, this time not only for Zimbabwe’s home market but for an integrated COMESA market across Eastern and Southern Africa.
