Farai Mabeza
Zimbabwe has assumed the chairmanship of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), with President Emmerson Mnangagwa calling for a regional market that allows African businesses to grow beyond their national borders and compete at scale.
Taking over the COMESA Authority for the 2026–2027 period, Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe would work with member states to advance the bloc’s integration agenda and translate its economic potential into tangible benefits for citizens and businesses.
The focus of Zimbabwe’s chairmanship will be shaped by the theme of the 2026 COMESA Summit, “One Market, One Future: Advancing Inclusive Industrialisation, Investment and Regional Integration in COMESA.”
Mnangagwa said the theme underlined the need to connect the productive capacity of member states with the wider regional market.
“Our common market must enable enterprises to produce at scale, facilitate cross border movement of factors of production and reach new customers.”
That ambition goes to the heart of what deeper regional integration could mean for African businesses. Instead of companies being constrained by relatively small national markets, a genuinely functioning COMESA market could give producers access to hundreds of millions of consumers while allowing capital, skills and other productive resources to move more easily across borders.
Mnangagwa noted that intra-COMESA exports have grown from approximately US$2 billion when the bloc’s Free Trade Area was established in 2000 to more than US$14 billion in 2025.
He argued that this progress should now provide the impetus for a stronger push towards industrialisation and value addition.
“Zimbabwe stands ready to work with all Member States as we consolidate our gains and build on achievements realised to date, for an integrated, competitive and prosperous region,” he said.
During its chairmanship, Zimbabwe intends to prioritise value addition and beneficiation, inclusive industrialisation and greater participation in regional value chains. It will also champion agro-processing, cross-border agro-industrial parks and efforts to make agriculture more resilient to climate change.
But Mnangagwa acknowledged that significant barriers remain. Non-tariff barriers, infrastructure gaps, transport bottlenecks and policy misalignment continue to make cross-border commerce more difficult and expensive.
He called for simplified border procedures, wider adoption of digital trade systems and improved movement of business people across COMESA countries.
