Keypoints:
- Africa ranked as its own third-largest trading partner in 2025
• Informal trade means actual intra-African commerce is likely much higher
• Industrial capacity remains the biggest obstacle to deeper integration
ACCORDING to Afreximbank’s African Trade Heatmaps 2026, Africa traded more with itself in 2025 than with any external partner bloc except Asia and the European Union, making the continent its own third-largest trading partner ahead of the Americas, the Middle East and the Gulf. Yet intra-African commerce still accounts for only about 15 percent of Africa’s total trade, highlighting both the progress achieved and the scale of the challenge ahead.
The finding challenges the long-standing perception that African economies conduct little business with one another. Yet it also highlights a deeper reality: while African demand for African goods is growing, the continent’s industrial base remains too weak to fully capitalise on that opportunity.
Trade integration is advancing
The latest data from the Cairo-based African Export-Import Bank suggests regional economic integration is progressing faster than many observers assume. Recent evidence of AfCFTA’s growing role in boosting regional commerce points to the increasing importance of regional markets in driving Africa’s economic transformation.
Official figures show Africa increasingly trading within its own borders despite decades of dependence on overseas markets.
However, the statistics likely understate the true scale of regional commerce.
A substantial volume of trade between neighbouring countries takes place outside formal customs systems. According to estimates from the African Union, unrecorded trade may account for as much as 60 percent of intra-African commerce.
That means the actual volume of goods moving across African borders could be significantly higher than official data suggests.
Yet businesses continue to face persistent payment barriers that continue to slow regional trade, including currency conversion costs, fragmented banking systems and cross-border transaction delays that make trading within Africa more expensive than it should be.
For border communities across West, East and Southern Africa, informal trade remains an essential source of income and food security. Much of this commerce consists of agricultural produce, livestock, consumer goods and small-scale manufactured products moving through long-established cross-border networks that often remain invisible in national trade statistics.
Southern Africa remains the integration leader
The report identifies major differences between countries and regions.
South Africa remains the largest contributor to intra-African trade, reflecting its status as the continent’s leading industrial and manufacturing economy.
Yet when measured as a share of total trade rather than absolute volume, smaller economies emerge as the most integrated. Lesotho, Eswatini, Botswana, Namibia, Mali and Djibouti conduct a substantial proportion of their trade within Africa, often through close commercial ties with neighbouring countries.
Much of Southern Africa’s integration is facilitated through the Southern African Customs Union, the world’s oldest customs union.
Regionally, Southern and West Africa recorded the highest levels of internal trade, with much of their commerce occurring within their respective regions. Central Africa remains the least integrated region, with only 11.7 percent of trade taking place among neighbouring economies. Analysts often attribute the region’s weaker performance to limited transport links, fragmented infrastructure and a continued dependence on commodity exports destined primarily for overseas markets.
Africa still trails Europe and Asia
Despite the progress, Africa remains far behind other major economic regions.
The continent’s total trade reached approximately $1.47tn in 2025. Intra-African trade accounted for about $214bn, representing roughly 15 percent of total trade.
By comparison, intra-regional trade accounts for around 60 percent of commerce in Asia and nearly 70 percent in Europe.
Economists at regional development institutions, including the African Development Bank and UNECA, have consistently argued that expanding regional value chains and industrial production will be critical to unlocking the full benefits of AfCFTA. The figures suggest that while market integration is advancing, productive capacity has not kept pace.
The gap highlights both the scale of the opportunity and the magnitude of the industrial transformation still required across the continent.
Manufacturing remains the missing piece
Africa’s export profile continues to be dominated by oil, gas, minerals and other raw commodities.
China remains Africa’s largest trading partner by a considerable margin. As explored in Africa’s evolving trade relationship with China, major commodity corridors such as Angola-China and DR Congo-China generate tens of billions of dollars annually while continuing to shape export patterns across the continent.
While these relationships generate important revenues, they also expose economies to fluctuations in global demand and commodity prices.
The implications extend beyond export earnings.
Every finished product imported from abroad represents manufacturing activity and jobs created elsewhere rather than on the continent itself. For Africa, home to the world’s youngest population, expanding industrial production has become an economic and demographic imperative.
The African Development Bank’s African Industrialisation Index 2025, produced with the African Union and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, highlights the scale of the challenge.
More than 230 special economic zones operate across 43 African countries, yet a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development survey found only about 15 percent are operating at full capacity.
As a result, Africa continues to rely heavily on imported manufactured goods. The challenge has intensified competition among countries seeking to expand industrial capacity, with Africa’s accelerating industrial competition highlighting how manufacturing strength is increasingly shaping economic influence across the continent.
Imports of manufactured and medium- to high-technology products exceeded $500bn in 2023, accounting for roughly half of all imports.
AfCFTA’s promise faces practical obstacles
The African Continental Free Trade Area was designed to address many of these structural weaknesses by lowering trade barriers and encouraging regional value chains.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa projects that fully implementing the agreement could increase intra-African trade by more than 400 percent by 2045.
Yet implementation remains uneven.
Although most African countries have ratified the agreement, negotiations continue over sensitive sectors including automotive manufacturing and textiles. Progress is also being slowed by inadequate transport infrastructure, inefficient border procedures, limited logistics capacity and costly customs processes.
For many policymakers, the future success of AfCFTA will depend less on tariff reductions and more on investments in roads, railways, ports, energy infrastructure and modern customs systems.
Stronger regional value chains would also allow raw materials extracted in one African country to be processed, manufactured and consumed elsewhere on the continent rather than exported abroad in their raw form, helping retain more value and jobs within African economies.
A strategic economic choice
The debate over intra-African trade is increasingly about more than economics.
As competition intensifies among China, the European Union, the United States and Gulf states for access to African markets and critical minerals, stronger regional trade could provide African economies with greater resilience and bargaining power.
The latest Afreximbank data shows that Africa is already trading with itself more than many assume. The next stage of integration, however, will require something more difficult than signing trade agreements.
Africa has demonstrated that demand for African goods exists. Whether the continent can build the factories, supply chains and regional value chains needed to meet that demand may determine the future success of both AfCFTA and Africa’s broader industrial transformation.
