Intra-African trade rose by 12.4% to $220.3 billion in 2024 compared with the previous year, according to Afreximbank’s African Trade Report 2025. (Wikimedia Commons)
Trade threats emerging from the US have made it even more imperative for members of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to put the pact more effectively into practice, experts said this week.
The trade agreement involving 54 member states commenced in January 2021, with the key objectives of boosting intra-Africa trade by eliminating barriers such as tariffs and promoting freer trade in transport, finance, communications and tourism.
It also aims to enhance industrialisation through diversification and reduce reliance on raw material exports. A by-product of this would be to create jobs and reduce poverty on the continent.
Intra-African trade rose by 12.4% to $220.3 billion in 2024 compared with the previous year, according to Afreximbank’s African Trade Report 2025.
But the agreement’s implementation has generally been slow, with some countries trailing, trade experts said during a National Economic Development and Labour Council symposium this week.
“The AfCFTA is an agreement of about 54 countries on the continent, at different levels of development at different levels of capabilities, at different levels of institutional development and so on,” said Sandile Tyini, chief director of African multilateral economic relations at the department of trade, industry and competition.
“We cannot leave others behind. We move at the pace of the strongest sometimes instead of the weakest but also there is always an issue of procurement of a country to move.”
He said there had been efforts to put pressure on governments and member states to develop the necessary frameworks to develop trade relations but “unfortunately we are still where we are”.
Geopolitical tensions emanating from US’s punitive tariffs against several countries and uncertainty around the renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act at the end of this month is putting more pressure on AfCFTA member states to accelerate intra-trade relations, said Faizal Ishmael, director at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance.
The legislation, introduced under former US president George W Bush, provides duty-free access to American markets for more than 40 sub-Sahara African countries, expires at the end of September. Its renewal is in serious doubt given President Donald Trump’s focus on protecting American producers.
“What we see today is a collapse of the international trading system, of global governance as we understood it,” Ishmael said.
“In this context, African countries should be asking themselves, ‘What is our role or how do we respond?’ Now, it is very fortunate that, at this time, we do have something like the African Continental Free Trade Area because, if we didn’t have it, we would really need to build it.”
He said the agreement should be used as an instrument to leverage the rich natural resources and agricultural products that the continent produces into goods with greater economic value to strengthen the continent’s economy.
“The African Continental Free Trade Area is just an instrument to transform and our biggest task is the transformation of the resources of the continent into higher value-added goods, so that we can create better jobs for the millions of young people that are already on the continent,” Ishmael added.
“We can compete in the world economy, and we can then play a role in the world economies, as equal partners, equal to the United States, to Europe, to Asia, to India, to China. We should be on the same level and the only way we’re going to do that is if we transform.”
He said trade unions should collaborate with the private sector as they play a critical role in ensuring there is increased contribution from civil society in developing inclusive trade policies.
“The trade unions have the power to play a leadership role, not only to protest in our times, but also to think, to build a vision about change, to have values, to also develop policies and strategies about how we should govern our countries and how we should transform our economies.”