Tunis: Secretary General of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Chileshe Kapwepwe, who is visiting Tunisia from June 29 to July 3, stated Tuesday that the mission aims to enhance Tunisia's engagement in the regional bloc and bring COMESA institutions closer to Tunisian stakeholders, with the goal of boosting trade, investment, and business partnerships. According to Agence Tunis Afrique Presse, Kapwepwe addressed a press conference after a lecture at the International Diplomatic Academy of Tunis, highlighting that COMESA, which consists of 21 member states with a population exceeding 680 million and a combined GDP of approximately US$1 trillion, is conducting two major events in Tunisia. The first event, the COMESA Institutions Awareness Forum, unites the Secretariat with several specialised COMESA institutions in areas, including trade finance, reinsurance, competition, monetary affairs, leather and leather products, women's entrepreneurship, and energy regulation. Representatives of these institutions have spent the past two days presenting their activities to both public and private sector stakeholders in Tunisia, aiming to increase awareness of opportunities available through COMESA membership and encourage greater Tunisian participation in the regional market. Kapwepwe also announced that the coming two days will focus on the COMESA Women in Business Forum and Trade Fair, where women entrepreneurs from across the bloc will showcase their products and engage in business-to-business meetings with Tunisian companies. The Secretary General expressed hope that the Tunisian stakeholders will recognize the diverse products from the other 20 COMESA member states that will be exhibited. Additionally, Kapwepwe mentioned engaging in discussions with the Minister of Trade and Export Development and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad to advance Tunisia's involvement in COMESA since it joined in July 2018. She emphasized that Tunisia's exports to other common marke t countries have shown significant growth, and she hopes the current engagements will further strengthen commercial exchanges and enable Tunisia to fully benefit from its membership. Discussions also centered on aligning Tunisia more closely with COMESA's objectives, particularly through increased use of innovation and technology to develop trade partnerships, facilitating the movement of business people to promote business-to-business cooperation, and modernizing border infrastructure. Highlighting Libya as Tunisia's nearest COMESA member state, Kapwepwe said talks included modernizing the Tunisian-Libyan border to support the development of regional trade corridors and facilitate the seamless movement of goods and people. Kapwepwe concluded by emphasizing that COMESA's ultimate objective is to increase intra-COMESA trade, strengthen Tunisia's commercial relations with the rest of the bloc, and raise awareness among government institutions, the private sector, and the wider public about the opportunities o ffered by COMESA membership.