The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa is seeking to expand regional trade and attract investment across its 21 member states, but persistent trade barriers, high financing costs and delays in implementing regional agreements remain obstacles for businesses, COMESA Secretary-General Chileshe Mpundu Kapwepwe said.
Speaking at the 19th COMESA Business Forum in Harare on Oct. 20, Kapwepwe said some non-tariff barriers remained unresolved and that several regional decisions had yet to be implemented nationally.
“Non-tariff barriers continue to raise the cost of trading across our borders, and some long-standing cases are yet to be resolved,” she said.
Kapwepwe added that “many decisions adopted by our Policy Organs, including several of the instruments I have described today, still await domestication and implementation at national level.”
She said infrastructure and logistics gaps, high financing costs and uneven use of regional trade instruments meant that the benefits of economic integration were not being felt equally, particularly by small and medium-sized enterprises, women and young entrepreneurs.
Trade ambitions meet implementation gaps
COMESA comprises 21 member states with more than 680 million people and an economy valued at approximately $1 trillion, according to Kapwepwe. Intra-regional trade stands at about $14 billion, she said.
The bloc’s free trade area removes tariffs on qualifying goods. The COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Free Trade Area, which entered into force in July 2024, has also expanded the potential market for businesses across the three regional economic communities.
COMESA has introduced measures intended to simplify cross-border trade, including electronic certificates of origin, a simplified trade regime for small-scale traders and an online mechanism for reporting non-tariff barriers.
However, Kapwepwe said some longstanding barriers remained unresolved and that implementation of regional decisions at national level was incomplete.
In a November 2023 update, COMESA reported that longstanding non-tariff barriers accounted for 63.6% of all outstanding cases at that time. Some had remained unresolved for five to eight years, while the longest-running cases had persisted for more than 12 years.
The organization identified additional taxes, import licensing requirements, complex documentation and registration procedures, and customs valuation among the reported obstacles.
The figures illustrate the persistence of trade complaints within the bloc, although they do not establish the current number of unresolved cases.
Investment surges, but inflows remain concentrated
COMESA attracted a record $65 billion in foreign direct investment in 2024, a 154% increase from the previous year, according to the COMESA Investment Report 2025, published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in collaboration with the COMESA Secretariat and the COMESA Regional Investment Agency.
The report said the increase was largely driven by Egypt’s $35 billion Ras El-Hekma development project. Even excluding that project, investment inflows to the bloc would have increased by 16%.
Investment was also concentrated in a small number of economies. Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya accounted for 90% of COMESA’s total foreign direct investment inflows in 2024, according to the report.
The report identified broadening investment across member states, expanding value-added manufacturing and developing small-business suppliers as priorities for sustaining growth.
Kapwepwe said COMESA was seeking to move regional economies away from exporting raw commodities toward processing minerals, agricultural products and other resources.
Ministers have endorsed regional competitiveness initiatives focused on value chains and industrial clusters. They have also adopted the COMESA Green Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Strategy for 2026-2035 to support regional health-product manufacturing.
Other initiatives include the Zimbabwe-Zambia Common Agro-Industrial Park and programs intended to help small businesses and cooperatives improve product quality, testing and certification to reach regional and international markets.
Women and young entrepreneurs face financing barriers
The challenges identified by Kapwepwe were echoed by Daphine Muzawazi, a principal program officer at the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD, during the launch of the Creating Opportunities for Youth and Women in Africa program under COMESA.
Muzawazi said women and young entrepreneurs continued to face barriers to finance, business development services, technology and markets.
“Addressing these barriers requires more than policy commitments,” she said. “It requires practical interventions, strong institutions, and sustained investment in the capabilities of our people.”
The COYWA program aims to support entrepreneurs through business incubation, entrepreneurship training, digital and financial literacy, mentorship and business development services. It is being implemented through the COMESA Federation of Women in Business, according to Muzawazi’s keynote address.
She said the objective was not simply to create more businesses, but to help enterprises survive, expand, create decent jobs and compete in regional and continental markets.
The keynote address did not specify the program’s budget, the number of businesses expected to benefit or its job-creation targets.
Muzawazi also linked the initiative to the African Continental Free Trade Area, saying women and young entrepreneurs needed to participate in regional value chains and access larger markets for the agreement to deliver its intended benefits.
COMESA calls for national implementation
Kapwepwe called on member states to implement agreed regional measures and urged businesses to use available trade instruments while identifying areas where they fall short.
“Our ambition of One Market, One Future is being built transaction by transaction, investment by investment, border by border and business by business,” she said.
COMESA’s stated priorities include reducing trade barriers, strengthening regional manufacturing, improving market access and expanding investment opportunities.
The secretary-general’s remarks identified unresolved barriers and incomplete national implementation as continuing challenges, while the UNCTAD investment report documented the concentration of foreign investment in a handful of member states.
