News

Trade in Services Negotiations Resume as Experts Meet

Trade experts from COMESA Member States are meeting this week to continue with the negotiations on the draft schedules of specific commitments under Trade in Services sector. This is the 11th Committee Meeting on Trade in Services, the apex forum of the Member States in the subsector. Since 2009, following the adoption of the COMESA…
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Small Scale Trade at Ethiopia – Djibouti Border Set to Rise

Small scale cross border trade is set to thrive along the Djibouti- Ethiopia borders following the first joint border trade committee meeting on 27 – 30 April 2022. The meeting was driven by the need to identify and resolve challenges facing the implementation of the Djibouti – Ethiopia Border Trade Protocol signed in 2015. The…
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Building Capacity for Key Stakeholders in the Regional Energy Sector

The project on Enhancement of Sustainable Regional Energy market for Eastern and Southern Africa (ESREM) has conducted a series of events in the region and beyond to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency, foster independent energy regulation and study tour on interconnected power system operations. The latest was a workshop on the framework for regulatory…
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Seychelles Appoints New Permanent Rep to COMESA

Lusaka, Friday, May 06, 2022: Seychelles has appointed a Permanent Representative to the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). His Excellency Claude Morel, High Commissioner of Seychelles to South Africa presented his letter of Credence to Secretary General, Chileshe Kapwepwe at the COMESA headquarters in Lusaka, Friday, 6 May 2022. During the event, Ms…
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Informal Cross-Border Trade on Steady Rise in Zambia

Lusaka, Tuesday, May 3, 2022: The overall import and export values of informal trade volumes in Zambia has significantly increased from  USD 13.3 Million in 2019 to USD 77.2 Million in 2021. Similarly, the informal trade export value has risen from USD81.02 million in 2019 to USD 206.08 million during the same period. This is…
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COMESA Meets Stakeholders at the Zimbabwe Trade Expo

Bulawayo, Wednesday, April 27, 2022: COMESA Secretariat is participating at the 62nd Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) which is being held in Bulawayo City from 26 – 30 April 2022. This is part of COMESA’s outreach to raise public and stakeholder awareness on regional integration programmes and encourage them to take advantage of the opportunities…
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Building Capacity for Digitally Enabled Trading System

Implementing digital trade facilitation reforms have positive impacts on intra-COMESA exports. It is estimated that an increase of 10 percent in the adoption of digital trade technologies would result in a 5.5 percent increase in intra-COMESA exports. The regional organization is therefore scaling-up the Free Trade Area (FTA) to a Digital Free Trade Area (DFTA),…
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Coming Soon: A Regional Blue Economy Strategy

COMESA has developed a draft strategy to harness the benefits of the Blue Economy for its 21 Member States. The draft strategy was presented to delegates from the Members States on 26-27 April 2022 in Lusaka, Zambia, where it was reviewed and validated. The concept of the Blue Economy has been embraced by the COMESA…
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World Bank Scales-up Funding COMESA Programmes

The current portfolio of World Bank supported projects in the COMESA region is close to five billion dollars and set to rise as other programmes are set to come on board. The largest project is the Regional Infrastructure Finance Facility (RIFF) of US$ 425 million whose objective is to promote access to long-term finance and…
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