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Business Reporter
THE volume of trade within Comesa has increased to $22 billion from $3 billion at the turn of the millennium amid calls for the region to intensify beneficiation so as to add value to its exports and increase earnings.

The 19-member organisation has adopted beneficiation of its vast natural resources as a long term strategy towards unlocking economic growth and poverty alleviation. The same strategy has received backing of the African Union and the SADC.

Zimbabwe has already domesticated the thrust in its Zim-Asset economic policy, which prioritises value addition and beneficiation.

Presently the bulk of the continent’s exports are raw mineral and agricultural products, which do not earn it much by way of revenue.

Comesa secretary general Sindiso Ngwenya said market integration through trade liberalisation was crucial for regional growth. The grouping was the first regional economic bloc to launch a free trade area that is duty and quota free in year 2000.

He told the recent 2015 Comesa heads of states summit in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia, that the growth in volumes, while suppressed compared to imports, were reflective of the appreciation of the scope and depth of market integration through trade.

“With respect to trade in goods, the volume of trade has increased from $3.2bn in 2000 to $22.4bn in 2014,” said Ngwenya, a Zimbabwean national.

“This remarkable seven-fold increase confirms that the Comesa trade regime is working.”

Ngwenya, however, pointed out that the stated figure did not include informal cross border trade, which is estimated to be 30 percent of total trade within the bloc.

He said the increase, impressive as it appears, only accounted for about 10 percent of the trade within the rest of the world.

An analysis of potential trade within Comesa region by the secretariat in 2014, said Ngwenya, has revealed that “annually the region imports $97bn worth of goods that are produced and traded within the region”.

He said the sectors such as textile, wooden furniture, household items, leather, beef and white meat, have the highest trade potential if properly supported.

“This suggests that the Comesa region doesn’t have the supply side capacity. The implementation of the Comesa industrial policy should go a long way towards developing the supply side capacity, either through increased utilisation of installed industrial capacity or new investments,” added Ngwenya.