General · EdgepediaOctober 10, 20268 min read

Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) is a regional economic community of 21 African member states headquartered in Lusaka, Zambia, that runs a free trade area among most of its members and is treaty-committed to progress toward a customs union and a common market with free movement of capital and labor.¹^•² Its treaty was signed on 5 November 1993 in Kampala, Uganda, and ratified on 8 December 1994 in Lilongwe, Malawi, building on a preferential trade area that had operated since 1982.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Members	21 states: Burundi, Comoros, DR Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe; combined population over 640 million²^•⁵
Free Trade Area	Launched 31 October 2000 with nine members eliminating tariffs under the 1992 liberalization schedule; 16 members participate as of April 2026⁶^•¹
Intra-regional trade	Intra-COMESA exports about US$14 billion in 2024, up from US$10 billion in 2020 and US$1.7 billion in 2000; total exports to the world were US$202 billion in 2024¹^•⁷^•⁸
Customs union	Agreed for December 2008, established in June 2009, but still not fully operational⁹^•⁶
Tripartite FTA	COMESA–EAC–SADC agreement entered into force 25 July 2024 after 14 ratifications
Institutions	Trade and Development Bank (over US$10 billion in assets), REPSS regional payment system (nine central banks), Court of Justice, Secretariat in Lusaka²
Secretariat budget	2023 income COM$17,969,571, expenditure COM$12,657,465, operating surplus COM$3,349,225, 96.94% budget utilization²

What COMESA is and what its treaty creates

COMESA's own description of its integration ladder distinguishes four stages. A Preferential Trade Area applies lower tariffs to intra-regional trade; a Free Trade Area removes internal tariffs entirely; a Customs Union adds a common external tariff (CET) on goods from outside the bloc; and a Common Market adds free movement of capital and labor with considerable harmonization of trade, exchange rate, fiscal, and monetary policies and full internal convertibility.¹ In practice COMESA operates mainly at the free trade area stage: the customs union exists on paper but is not fully applied, and the free movement commitments of a common market remain aspirational.⁶

The treaty's supreme organ is the Authority of Heads of State and Government of all 21 member states, supported by the Council of Ministers, technical committees, the Committee of Governors of Central Banks, an Intergovernmental Committee, and a Secretariat in Lusaka headed by a Secretary-General.²

Membership: who is in, out, and why it shifts

The 21 members span North Africa (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia), the Horn (Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan), East and Southern Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Comoros), plus DR Congo and Eswatini.² Membership has changed over time: the IMF counted 19 members in 2004, and Somalia was still completing accession to the COMESA Treaty at the end of 2023.⁴^•²

The five holdouts. As of end-2023, five member states had yet to fully join the FTA: DR Congo, Eritrea, and Ethiopia, Eswatini (under a derogation tied to the Tripartite FTA), and Somalia.² The 24th Summit in Nairobi in October 2025 again flagged the same five countries and urged them to join fully and expeditiously.¹⁰ COMESA's Trade and Customs Division reports that as of April 2026, 16 member states participate in the FTA while Ethiopia has reduced tariffs by 10%, Eritrea by 80%, and Eswatini remains under derogation.¹

How the free trade area works in practice

The FTA took effect on 31 October 2000, when nine member states eliminated tariffs on goods originating in COMESA under the tariff liberalization schedule adopted in 1992.⁶ The Secretary-General described the current 16-member FTA as about 80% market integration.¹¹

Rules of origin are the weak link. UNCTAD's research finds underutilization of COMESA trade preferences and calls for reforms, especially of rules of origin, as member states simultaneously engage in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).¹² In other words, the tariff preferences exist on paper but many traders do not use them, and the documentary rules that determine whether goods qualify are a central constraint.

Digital facilitation. The Secretariat has digitalized trade facilitation instruments including the Electronic Certificate of Origin, an Electronic Cargo Tracking System, an Online Non-Tariff Barriers System, and National Single Windows, which members were urged to adopt at the 24th Summit.¹⁰

By the numbers

Intra-COMESA exports have grown substantially but remain small relative to the bloc's overall commerce. The Journal of African Trade records intra-COMESA exports rising from US$1.7 billion in 2000 to US$9.96 billion in 2013, an increase attributed largely to the 2000 FTA.⁸ The 23rd Summit communiqué noted a 40% increase from US$10 billion in 2020 to US$14 billion in 2023, while observing that the figures remained low compared with trade with the rest of the world.⁷ COMESA's Trade and Customs Division estimates intra-COMESA exports at about US$14 billion in 2024, against total exports to the world of US$202 billion (up 3.7% from US$195 billion in 2023) and global imports of US$277 billion.¹ On these figures, intra-regional exports amount to roughly 7% of the bloc's total exports.

Secretariat finances. In 2023 the Secretariat reported total income of COM$17,969,571 (up 9.97%), expenditure of COM$12,657,465 (up 2.42%), an operating surplus of COM$3,349,225, and a 96.94% budget utilization rate.² The Secretary-General has identified overdependence on official development assistance (ODA) as a persistent obstacle, alongside slow ratification of trade policy instruments, and the digital divide.¹¹

Institutions: court, bank, and payment system

Trade and Development Bank. The bloc's development bank, historically known as PTA Bank, surpassed US$10 billion in assets in 2023, with increased equity and profits and expanded green financing.²

REPSS. The Regional Payment and Settlement System allows trade in goods and services without letters of credit. Nine central banks were active on it in 2023, with transactions ranging from US$23 to US$4,999,900, saving importers over US$5.5 million.²

Court of Justice. The COMESA Court of Justice resolved cases, engaged in capacity building, and continued structural improvements to uphold the rule of law and ensure treaty compliance, according to the 2023 annual report.²

The stalled customs union and the Tripartite/AfCFTA track

Members had agreed to launch a customs union with a common external tariff by December 2008, and a customs union was established in June 2009, but it has yet to become fully operational.⁹^•⁶ Two constraints recur in the analysis. First, revenue: Malawi reported that adopting the CET would cause a large loss of tax revenue, because trade taxes account for 35% of its tax revenue.¹³ Second, economics: a CGE modeling study of the proposed customs union found it would not be beneficial to a majority of member countries, with negative real income impacts largely because negative terms-of-trade effects wipe out the allocative efficiency gains of liberalization; under a CET scenario excluding 2% of tariff lines as sensitive products, tariff revenues fall steeply for most members.⁹

Implementation capacity is a third constraint. A 2014 COMESA Council of Ministers report, tallying 217 decisions from 2009 to 2012, found that 13% of decisions were not addressed to any party, only five of 12 instruments had been ratified, and only nine of 19 members had signed the COMESA Treaty.¹³

The Tripartite track. COMESA, the EAC, and SADC agreed in October 2008 to negotiate a Tripartite Free Trade Area, with a revised draft agreement finalized in December 2010 and cooperation roots reaching back to 1968.¹⁴ The TFTA Agreement, signed in 2015, aims to progressively eliminate tariffs and non-tariff barriers, liberalize trade in services, and create a large single market with free movement of goods and services.¹⁵ It entered into force on 25 July 2024 after ratification by 14 member/partner states: Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The 24th Summit urged members to operationalize the TFTA as a stepping stone toward full implementation of the AfCFTA and the single African Economic Community.¹⁰

How it compares with the EAC, SADC, and overlapping blocs

The COMESA–EAC–SADC Tripartite comprises 29 countries representing 53% of African Union membership, more than 60% of continental GDP (US$1.88 trillion in 2019), and a combined population of 800 million, according to The EastAfrican; SADC's own page gives an older, smaller figure of 26 countries, nearly 600 million people, and about US$1.0 trillion in GDP.¹⁶^•¹⁷

Multiple memberships create friction. COMESA's 2023 annual report states that the multiplicity of membership across COMESA, the EAC, SADC, and the AfCFTA has created complexities and challenges for smooth implementation of the Tripartite FTA, alongside slow progress on a dedicated Tripartite Secretariat and human and technical capacity constraints.² A country can owe different tariff schedules to different blocs: within the EAC, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda ratified the tripartite agreement while the DRC and Tanzania did not, and Eswatini's participation is complicated by its simultaneous membership of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), which sets its own external tariff.¹⁶

Recent developments

Three developments stand out. The TFTA entered into force on 25 July 2024 after reaching its 14-ratification threshold.⁷ The 23rd Summit met on 1 November 2024 and the 24th Summit in Nairobi on 10 October 2025, where Kenyan President William Ruto took over as COMESA Chair and urged a shift from global financial systems to African institutions; the same coverage puts the bloc's combined population at more than 640 million.⁷^•¹⁰^•⁵ Both summits pressed the five non-FTA members to join fully, without a change in their status.¹⁰

References

Initially written Oct 10, 2026 · Edited: Oct 11, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026