President Hichilema Urges COMESA Leaders to Walk the Talk on Regional Trade

President Hakainde Hichilema has urged COMESA member states to move beyond rhetoric and take decisive steps to integrate regional value chains, dismantle trade barriers, and mobilize domestic capital to drive Africa’s industrialization.

Addressing the 25th COMESA Summit of Heads of State and Government in Harare, President Hichilema said the bloc’s 700 million citizens and vast mineral wealth would remain underutilized unless countries deliberately build cross-border supply chains.

“This is a huge market, but for us to make it work, we must walk the talk,” he said. “Africa still does the least business with itself. How will our economies grow if we don’t trade with each other?”

He pointed to critical minerals such as copper, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and lithium, noting that Africa continues to export them raw while importing finished products like electric vehicles. He added that this pattern locks the continent out of true industrial value and proposed establishing a regional manufacturing ecosystem instead.

President Hichilema also highlighted Zambia’s rapid industrial expansion, noting that in just five years the country has become Africa’s second-largest fertilizer producer after Nigeria.

During the summit, President Hichilema assumed the role of Vice-Chairperson of the COMESA Authority of Heads of State and Government, and formally handed over title deeds for land provided by the Zambian government for the construction of a regional secretariat.

Incoming COMESA Chairperson, President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, emphasized that regional integration must deliver practical results. He stated that prosperity depends on processing minerals and agricultural products locally rather than exporting them unrefined.

“We are masters of our own destiny,” he said, urging policies that uplift women, youth, smallholder farmers, and MSMEs, while placing innovation and green growth at the center of development.

Outgoing Chairperson President William Ruto of Kenya challenged leaders to break their reliance on foreign borrowing by tapping into Africa’s $4 trillion in domestic financial assets.

“We cannot be ambitious in our plans and timid in our financing,” he said, citing Kenya’s $16 billion refinery project,funded almost entirely by African institutions,as proof of what local financing can achieve.