ESWATINI’S COMESA EXPORTS UP 19%

MBABANE- Eswatini’s export trade with COMESA showed an impressive increase of 19 per cent in 2017.

This is according to the 2018 Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) International Trade Statistics report released on Monday. The major trade items for the kingdom included, but were not limited to, sugar, food concentrates and agricultural commodities. It was reported that COMESA countries that recorded notable growth rates in their 2017 exports were DRC (66 per cent), Rwanda (55 per cent), Libya (52 per cent), Sudan (41 per cent), Zambia (25 per cent), Seychelles (22 per cent), Eswatini (19 per cent), Ethiopia (15 per cent), Comoros (12 per cent) and Egypt (12 per cent).

Combined

COMESA in its reported explained that DRC, Libya, Egypt, Zambia and Sudan together accounted for a combined increase of US$ 15 billion in exports in 2017. On the other hand, COMESA’s global imports dropped by seven per cent from in 2017. “Exports of manufactures from the COMESA region recorded an increase of 14 per cent in 2017 compared to 2016. Contributing to this increase were exports of cobalt oxides from DRC, fertilizers from Egypt and food concentrates from Eswatini,” reads the report in part. It was also stated that COMESA’s total trade increased by US$ 2 billion (about E22 billion) in 2017.

“This increase was due to improved export performance which recorded a rise of 19 per cent from US$ 73 billion (about E803 billion) in 2016 to US$ 87 billion (about E957 billion) in 2017,” it was explained. The COMESA experts clarified that the drop in COMESA’s global imports was mainly attributed to performance by Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia and Djibouti whose combined imports accounted for a decline of US$20 billion in 2017.

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