Zimbabwe - Foreign trade
Due to violence in 2000, the annual tobacco auction that usually provides 30% of Zimbabwe's foreign exchange earnings had less than 20% of its normal sales volume and sold bales at prices 15% lower than usual. Unmanufactured tobacco from Zimbabwe (30% of total exports) typically accounts for about 11% of the world's export market in that category.
Gold had been the second-largest export commodity, but gold revenues were down by almost 50% in 2000 due to high inflation rates in Zimbabwe and low world market prices for gold.
Other important exports include cotton (9.2%), iron and steel (9.2%), sugar (4.7%), and nickel (4.4%).
In 1999 Zimbabwe's imports were distributed among the following categories:
| Consumer goods | 6.8% |
| Food | 4.5% |
| Fuels | 11.3% |
| Industrial supplies | 39.1% |
| Machinery | 26.4% |
| Transportation | 11.3% |
| Other | 0.6% |
Principal trading partners in 1999 (in millions of US dollars) were as follows:
| COUNTRY | EXPORTS | IMPORTS | BALANCE |
| South Africa | 301 | 919 | -618 |
| United Kingdom | 182 | 142 | 40 |
| Germany | 150 | 113 | 37 |
| Japan | 135 | 88 | 47 |
| United States | 110 | 101 | 9 |
| China (inc. Hong Kong) | 107 | 63 | 44 |
| Malawi | 73 | 8 | 65 |
| Italy | 67 | 24 | 43 |
| Netherlands | 66 | 30 | 36 |
| Mozambique | 63 | 14 | 49 |