Zimbabwe - International trade

Exports of goods and services grew by about 6.3 percent a year between 1965 and 1997, and manufactured exports accounted for more than 32 percent of total merchandise exports in 1997. Zimbabwe's export partners vary significantly from year to year. In 1996, the most important were South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland (38 percent of imports and 12 percent of exports)—all members of the Southern African Customs Union. The United Kingdom was also an important trading partner (9 percent of imports and 12 percent of exports), as was Japan (5 percent of imports and 6 percent of exports), Germany (6 percent of imports), and the United States (5 percent of imports). Zimbabwe's membership in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) has, in theory, provided access to new markets in regional trade. In practice, however, Zimbabwean exporters have been somewhat disappointed due to constraints in foreign exchange availability with the potential partners. The historic change of government in South Africa has enabled investment and trade between

Trade (expressed in billions of US$): Zimbabwe
	Exports	Imports
1975	.932	.932
1980	1.415	1.448
1985	1.113	.896
1990	1.726	1.847
1995	2.119	2.660
1998	N/A	N/A
SOURCE: International Monetary Fund. International Financial Statistics Yearbook 1999.

Exchange rates: Zimbabwe
Zimbabwean dollars (Z$) per US$1
Jan 2001	54.9451
2000	43.2900
1999	38.3142
1998	21.4133
1997	11.8906
1996	9.9206
SOURCE: CIA World Factbook 2001 [ONLINE].

the 2 countries, but the overall result has been that South Africa has taken an even larger share of Zimbabwe's domestic market following the recent increase in trade liberalization .