COMESA Exports and Imports

Current exports from members of COMESA to the rest of the world stood at approximately 105 billion US dollars in 2014 while the imports stood at US $202 billion and, therefore, the imports are higher than the exports.

Intra COMESA trade as a percentage of total COMESA trade has continued to grow from about 5 percent in 2005 to 7 percent in 2014 with the largest component of trade primarily being agro based or resource based with limited product diversification and beneficiation.

COMESA’s imports mainly comprise manufactures, which account to at least 58 percent of the total imports or about 90 billion US dollars annually.

The challenges that face most COMESA countries and hindering business activities include custom interconnectivity issues which result in intermittent network and electronic system downtimes and slow speed of systems, vehicle overload controls in terms of weigh bridges and different load systems that are applied leading to massive wastage of time as well as money and increasing the costs too, there is also multiple documentation as well as the process requirements among other challenges.