Zimbabwe’s ambition to grow its presence in regional and global markets is increasingly shifting from securing trade agreements to strengthening the manufacturers capable of taking advantage of them.
This emerged as the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) and ZimTrade formalised a partnership under the Zimbabwe Export Manufacturers Initiative, with the two organisations placing enterprise competitiveness, value addition and market penetration at the centre of the country’s export transformation agenda.
CZI Chief Executive Officer Sekai Kuvarika said Zimbabwe had to move beyond viewing market access as the end goal and instead focus on whether local businesses had the capacity to produce competitively for those markets.
“We want more Zimbabwean manufacturers exporting. We want those already exporting to expand into more markets and move into higher value products,” Kuvarika said.
She said manufacturers needed to compete on quality, productivity, standards, cost and reliability if Zimbabwe was to translate opportunities under SADC, COMESA and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) into tangible economic gains.
“We want Zimbabwe to translate the market access that is available through SADC, through COMESA, through the AfCFTA, and other trade arrangements into actual production, actual exports, actual investment, and actual jobs,” she said.
The challenge is particularly significant given the structure of Zimbabwe’s exports, which remains heavily weighted towards commodities and raw materials.
Kuvarika said the country’s manufacturing sector had considerable capability and entrepreneurial potential, but manufactured exports remained below 10 percent of total exports.
The development points to a wider structural challenge: having access to international markets does not automatically translate into successful exports.
“Market access is necessary, but market access alone is not enough. We need to produce and we need more market penetration,” Kuvarika said.
ZimTrade Chief Executive Officer Allan Majuru echoed the concern, arguing that Zimbabwe needed to retain more value from what it produces rather than continuing to export predominantly raw materials.
He noted that merchandise exports stood at around US$9.7 billion last year, while value-added and manufactured exports were approximately US$588 million.
“In short, we are exporting money, we are exporting jobs. So we need to localize those things,” Majuru said.
For Majuru, the answer lies in expanding manufacturing and strengthening the ability of local companies to compete internationally.
He described competitiveness in straightforward terms: producing a quality product at the lowest possible cost.
“When we trade, nobody’s going to say, ‘This is a manufactured good from Zimbabwe. Let me get it,’ because we are competing with other countries,” he said.
The implication is that Zimbabwean producers must be able to compete on merit rather than relying on the origin of their products or preferential market arrangements.
The AfCFTA provides an important opportunity, but Majuru said the opening of markets also exposes Zimbabwean companies to greater competition from producers across the continent.
This makes productivity, quality, cost efficiency and reliability increasingly important for local manufacturers seeking to expand beyond traditional markets.
The new initiative will therefore seek to bridge the gap between export promotion and industrial competitiveness.
CZI will use its convening and policy role to bring manufacturers and export-ready businesses together, while ZimTrade will contribute market intelligence, export promotion expertise and connections to international buyers.
The partnership will cover export-readiness assessments, productivity, standards and certification, packaging, export costing, trade finance, logistics and export procedures.
It will also support business-to-business engagements, trade missions, research, technology transfer and supplier development.
Majuru said the partnership should also address the changing structure of businesses, where some manufacturers no longer have dedicated export departments and export responsibilities are increasingly handled by senior executives.
This creates a need for targeted training to ensure companies understand the practical requirements of international trade.
The two organisations also want to increase the number of manufacturers participating in export activity.
“For us to be able to increase export value, we should also grow the number of manufacturers,” Majuru said.
A broader manufacturing base, he argued, would diversify Zimbabwe’s export portfolio and create opportunities to penetrate markets beyond the country’s traditional destinations.
While Zimbabwe’s major export destinations include the United Arab Emirates, South Africa and China, manufactured exports remain concentrated largely within the region.
ZimTrade believes there is significant scope to expand the footprint of Zimbabwean manufactured products across Africa.
The initiative will also seek to make trade missions and international exhibitions more strategic by identifying specific market opportunities before manufacturers are taken into those markets.
Majuru said business delegations should be structured around clearly identified opportunities so that participating companies can pursue viable commercial leads rather than simply attending events.
For CZI, the partnership forms part of a broader drive to make Zimbabwean companies investment-ready, scalable and capable of entering regional and global value chains.
The agreement will be supported by annual joint work plans outlining priority interventions, responsibilities, timelines and performance indicators.
Both organisations have stressed that implementation will be critical.
Majuru said the partnership must be measured by practical outcomes rather than the signing ceremony.
The ultimate indicators will include the number of manufacturers supported, barriers removed, markets opened, investment generated and the growth of manufactured exports.
The partnership also comes ahead of the COMESA Summit and Business Forum scheduled for 19–21 October 2026, providing another opportunity for Zimbabwean businesses to showcase their capabilities and build regional commercial relationships.
As Zimbabwe seeks to transform its export economy, the CZI-ZimTrade partnership represents an attempt to connect policy, production and markets in a more deliberate way.
The central challenge is no longer simply whether Zimbabwe has access to markets, but whether its manufacturers can produce the right products, at the right quality and cost, consistently enough to win and retain those markets.
If the initiative delivers on its objectives, it could help shift Zimbabwe’s export story from one dominated by commodities towards an economy increasingly driven by manufacturing, value addition, innovation and competitive Zimbabwean brands.
