• The surplus halved from US$240.1 million to US$113.7 million, with exports down 15.1% to US$969.4 million; nickel mattes plunged 60.9% while gold fell 8.6%
• Tobacco exports rose 16.6% to US$235.28M providing resilience in agriculture, however, export reliance on few lines  and destinations amplifies vulnerability to single-commodity disruptions or shipment timing
• Fuel and food imports stayed high, limiting surplus potential despite machinery inflows for beneficiation, January serves as pre-ban baseline, February data will reflect the raw mineral freeze

Harare- Zimbabwe's goods trade surplus fell by 52.6% in January 2026, dropping from US$240.1 million in December 2025 to US$113.7 million, the sharpest monthly deterioration in the trade balance in recent memory. Total exports declined by 15.1%, shedding US$172.3 million to close at US$969.4 million, while imports fell by a more modest 5.1% to US$855.7 million according to the latest data from Zimstat.

The asymmetry between the pace of export decline and the relatively slow compression of imports is the central story in these numbers. Zimbabwe's export engine slowed sharply in January, but the country's appetite for foreign goods, particularly fuel and food barely responded.

The surplus, while still positive, now sits at its thinnest margin in several months and raises immediate questions about the durability of Zimbabwe's improving trade position. December 2025's US$240.1 million surplus had been a source of considerable optimism, as evidence that the country's mineral export strategy was bearing fruit.

January's data should temper that optimism without erasing it. Seasonal factors play a role. January is traditionally a softer month for both gold output and tobacco shipments as the agricultural and mining calendars reset. But the scale of the decline in certain commodity lines goes beyond seasonality and demands closer examination.

Gold remains Zimbabwe's dominant export by a commanding margin, accounting for 51.5% of total export value in January 2026. But the engine misfired. Gold exports fell from US$539.63 million in December 2025 to US$492.97 million in January, a decline of US$46.66 million or approximately 8.6%.

The drop was driven by a fall in physical output. Gold production declined from 4.9 tonnes in December to just 3.1 tonnes in January, a 36.7% month-on-month reduction. This is the single largest quantitative factor behind the narrowing surplus.

The output dip is not entirely surprising. Zimbabwe's gold production has followed a seasonal pattern in which the December-January transition typically brings lower output as small-scale and artisanal miners who contribute a significant share of national production reduce activity during the festive period.

Formal mine operations also tend to experience maintenance shutdowns and shift reductions across this period. The more important question is whether January's 3.1 tonne figure represents a temporary seasonal trough or the beginning of a more sustained softening. Zimbabwe produced a record 46.7 tonnes of gold in 2025, generating over US$4 billion in revenue. Maintaining that trajectory in 2026 will require a strong recovery in output through the February to April period.

Gold is also Zimbabwe's most important currency earner exported primarily to the United Arab Emirates, which received US$500.1 million worth of Zimbabwean goods in January and accounted for 51.6% of total export value on its own.

The UAE's dominance as an export destination is almost entirely a function of gold flows. When gold output falls, the UAE share of export revenues contracts proportionally, and the foreign currency inflows that underpin the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) currency's stability are directly affected. January's gold shortfall, in that context, is not merely a commodity statistic. It is a monetary pressure point.

The most alarming single data point in January's export figures is the collapse of nickel matte revenues. Nickel mattes, a higher-value processed form of nickel, representative of exactly the kind of beneficiation Zimbabwe's industrial policy champions fell from US$185.62 million in December 2025 to just US$72.60 million in January 2026, a decline of 60.9%.

In a single month, nickel matte shed US$113 million in export value. That figure alone accounts for nearly the entire narrowing of the trade surplus.

Nickel matte is not a seasonal commodity in the way tobacco or artisanal gold are. Its production is dominated by large-scale formal operations primarily Zimplats with relatively stable output profiles. A collapse of this magnitude in a single month typically reflects one or more of three possible causes, a significant production or smelter disruption at a major operation, a deliberate inventory drawdown or shipment timing shift that moved December's revenues unusually high and January's unusually low, or a sharp deterioration in the international nickel price that compressed the revenue per unit even as volumes were maintained.

The combination of a 52% fall in PGM concentrate volumes through 2025 as producers deliberately shifted toward matte and the scale of December's matte figure (US$185.62 million, itself an elevated figure) suggests a timing and shipment bunching effect may be partly responsible. The January figure should be read with caution as a single-month aberration pending February data.

What the nickel matte figure also illustrates, however, is the concentration risk embedded in Zimbabwe's export base. When three or four commodity lines account for the overwhelming majority of export revenues, a disruption in any one of them has an outsized effect on the total.

The country exported goods to the UAE, China, and South Africa worth US$843.7 million combined in January, 87% of total exports concentrated in just three destinations. This is not diversification. It is a portfolio with very limited hedges.

Nickel matte revenues fell by 61% in a single month shedding US$113 million and accounting for almost the entire narrowing of Zimbabwe's trade surplus.

Against the broad deterioration in January's export numbers, tobacco stands out as a meaningful counterpoint. Tobacco exports, Zimbabwe's second-largest export category, accounting for 24.3% of total export value rose from US$201.71 million in December 2025 to US$235.28 million in January 2026, an increase of US$33.57 million or 16.6%.

This is a significant positive performance, reflecting the strength of Zimbabwe's leaf tobacco sector and the continuing demand from buyers in the European Union, China, and regional markets.

Tobacco accounted for 82.7% of Zimbabwe's exports to the EU in January, with the remainder largely made up of ferro-chromium and granite products. The EU remains one of Zimbabwe's most valuable per-unit-value markets, even if it is not among the largest by volume.

The US$16.5 million in EU exports is modest in absolute terms, but the product mix,  high-quality leaf tobacco and processed ferroalloys rather than raw ore reflects a value-added trade relationship that the country should be actively working to deepen.

Coke and semi-coke of coal also recorded a 24.1% increase, rising from US$13.3 million to US$16.5 million, driven in part by regional demand from SADC and COMESA markets where it featured among the top export products.

On the import side, Zimbabwe's import bill tells a story of structural dependency that policy cannot resolve quickly. The country's top two imports by value are diesel (US$94.82 million, 22.3% of total imports) and unleaded petrol (US$51.24 million), together accounting for nearly US$146 million or 17% of the total import bill in January alone.

The fuel import dependency reflects both Zimbabwe's energy infrastructure deficit and the limited domestic refining capacity that has historically made the country a price-taker in regional petroleum markets. South Africa (US$260.9 million) and Bahrain (US$88.2 million) were the primary fuel source countries, with Bahrain's position reflecting its role as a petroleum products transhipment hub.

The food import picture is equally concerning. Maize, Zimbabwe's staple food was the third-largest import at US$30.28 million, down from US$37.56 million in December. The reduction is modest comfort, but, he country is still spending over US$30 million per month importing a crop it was once able to export in surplus quantities.

Crude soyabean oil imports fell sharply from US$29.43 million to US$17.45 million, while soya bean imports rose slightly to US$16.31 million. The combined food import bill of maize, soya products, and cereals collectively reflects the fragility of Zimbabwe's food security position and the continued cost it imposes on the country's foreign exchange reserves.

SADC accounted for US$356.9 million of total imports, with machinery, cereals, mineral fuels, and fertilisers constituting the top four product categories,  a profile consistent with a country still heavily dependent on its immediate neighbours for both productive inputs and food.

The machinery and mechanical appliances import line (13.5% of total imports) and electrical machinery and equipment (8.5%) offer a more constructive reading. These are capital goods, inputs to production rather than consumption and their presence in the top ten import categories is consistent with the ongoing investment in beneficiation plants and industrial infrastructure that the government's NDS2 agenda requires.

If the machinery imports of January 2026 are flowing into the processing facilities being built by Huayou, Sinomine, Zimplats, and domestic industrialists, they represent productive foreign exchange expenditure rather than import dependency in the pejorative sense.

January's trade data must be read with one eye fixed firmly on what came next. On February 25, 2026 after January's figures had already been compiled, the government announced an immediate suspension of all raw mineral exports, including lithium concentrates, PGM concentrates, chrome ore concentrates, and nickel concentrates.

The ban, which applies even to shipments already in transit, freezes exports that collectively generated approximately US$1 to US$1.2 billion annually, between 30 and 35% of MMCZ revenues and 10 to 15% of Zimbabwe's total export base.

January's data provides the clearest available baseline against which to measure the ban's impact. Nickel ores and concentrates, one of the commodity lines now frozen recorded US$30.66 million in January exports, nearly double December's US$15.35 million.

Other mineral substances, another affected category, contributed US$26.92 million. Chrome ore concentrates, which generated US$150 million across the full year of 2025, will now be suspended until the government's new compliance and beneficiation framework is published and operationalised.

The export of 886,752 metric tonnes of chrome ore in 2025 generated only US$150 million, a revenue-per-tonne figure that validates the beneficiation case but freezing those exports without a clear path to resumed processing-based exports simply replaces one form of revenue loss with another.

The timing is particularly sensitive for Zimbabwe's currency management. The ZiG — introduced in April 2024 as Zimbabwe's latest attempt at monetary stability  is partially backed by mineral export revenues. A prolonged freeze on raw mineral exports, if it translates into a sustained decline in forex inflows, will put pressure on the ZiG's stability at a moment when currency credibility is still being established.

MMCZ has projected revenues of US$3.5 billion for 2026, an ambitious target that assumed the continuation of the export volumes recorded in 2025. Whether that target survives the immediate ban intact will depend almost entirely on how quickly the government publishes its compliance framework and how rapidly the processing infrastructure that compliant exporters must demonstrate can be commissioned.

January's trade surplus narrowed sharply before the export ban took effect. February's data will show the first full-month impact of a freeze on US$1 billion in annual raw mineral exports.

Zimbabwe's trade data therefore, carries three clear messages for policymakers. The first is that the country's trade surplus  while real and meaningful  is fragile. It rests on a narrow base of commodity exports dominated by gold, tobacco, and nickel products, with precious little diversification into manufactures, services, or agriculture-based value chains. When any one of those dominant commodity lines underperforms, the surplus deteriorates rapidly. The nickel matte collapse of January demonstrates how quickly a single disruption can cost the country more than US$100 million in a single month.

The second message is that the import bill's structural components,  fuel and food,  are resistant to short-term policy interventions. Diesel and petrol together consumed nearly US$146 million of Zimbabwe's foreign exchange in January alone. Maize imports added another US$30 million. Until Zimbabwe develops meaningful domestic energy production capacity and achieves genuine food security through agricultural productivity gains, these import lines will continue to cap the potential trade surplus regardless of how well the export side performs.

The government's investment in the Manhize steel plant, the Huayou sulphate facility, and other industrial projects may, over time, substitute for imported manufactured goods, but that substitution will take years to materialise at meaningful scale.

The third and most urgent message is the need for speed and clarity on the raw mineral export ban framework. January's numbers show a trade account already under pressure from seasonal factors and commodity price movements. February will add the impact of an immediate ban on the country's third and fourth-largest export categories.

If the government can publish a clear, workable compliance framework quickly, one that allows companies with approved beneficiation plans to resume exports while maintaining the crackdown on malpractice, the disruption may prove temporary and manageable. If the framework remains pending through March and April, the trade data will begin to tell a much darker story, and the pressure on Zimbabwe's currency, its mineral sector employment, and its foreign investment reputation will intensify with every passing month.

January's trade data is a reminder that managing it properly requires not just the right policy destination but the right journey, deliberate, predictable, and built on the institutional credibility that investors and trading partners need to stay committed through the transition.

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