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46th MEETING OF THE COMESA COUNCIL OF MINISTERS IN LUSAKA, ZAMBIA: THE DRC, THROUGH ITS MINISTER OF FOREIGN TRADE, ADVOCATED FOR RESPECT FOR THE RULES OF ORIGIN OF PRODUCTS IN THE COMESA AREA AND THE STRENGTHENING OF ITS PARTNERSHIP WITH THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT- UNCTAD

The Minister of Foreign Trade, Julien Paluku Kahongya represented the Democratic Republic of Congo at the 46th meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa-COMESA which was held this Thursday, December 4, 2025 in Lusaka, Zambia, under the theme "Optimizing digitalization to strengthen regional value chains for sustainable and inclusive growth"

The 21 member countries of this African regional economic organization aiming to promote regional integration through trade and development have agreed to consolidate the construction of infrastructure to facilitate trade in the COMESA region including one-stop cross-border posts and to establish financing mechanisms for the COMESA 2026-2030 plan which integrates several areas including trade, customs, transport, technology, agriculture, environment, natural resources and industry pharmaceutical; and this, with the support of partners.

In his intervention, the Minister of Foreign Trade, Julien Paluku Kahongya pleaded for respect for the rules of origin of products in the COMESA zone and for the accentuation of its cooperation with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development - UNCTAD which supported the implementation of its Commercial Information Portal-PIC.

On this occasion, he informed Member States and COMESA officials that the DRC is further strengthening the dematerialization of commercial operations through the Comprehensive Single Window for Foreign Trade-GUCE.

Note that the Minister was accompanied by the Ambassador of the DRC to Zambia and experts from the Ministries of Foreign Trade, Regional Integration and Youth, but also from the Central Bank, the Industry Promotion Fund-FPI and the Insurance Regulatory and Control Authority.