The African dream of economic independence made another audacious stride in Algiers when the African Export-Import Bank unveiled a $1 billion trade & distribution company. Still, the question begging for answers is whether the trade gap of African countries can be closed.

The event didn’t end without deals among countries, amounting to $48.3 billion. The Director of Trade, Investment, and Corporate Finance at African Export-Import Bank, Ayman El-Zoghby, had said they have been working even before the $1 billion trade & distribution company was launched.

Even though he called the project a game-changer for Africa’s trade future, there are still worries over the trade gap, which can only be closed with sincerity and good business partners in agriculture, manufacturing, media and entertainment, technology, and other areas. The objective, it was gathered, is to halt the export of raw materials out of Africa without added value.

The AfCFTA has enabled tariffs to be reduced on industrial goods, though the process of value chain integration is slow. Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, and other African countries have reduced their tariffs imposed on goods with the hope of attracting investors.

The textile industry in Nigeria, for example, still grapples with high logistics costs and fragmented standards across borders, which erode its export competitiveness. Many textile industries in Northern Nigeria’s States of Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, and Borno have gone comatose despite the removal of tariffs by the government. Efforts by the Government of President Goodluck Jonathan to revive the industries with palliatives given to company owners about 15 years ago didn’t yield the needed result.

Algeria’s fledgling automotive industry has experienced more promising trajectories, thanks to cross-border assembly partnerships in North and West Africa. But lack of uniform local content rules and delays in obtaining licenses could eventually still discourage investment. They want more jobs for Africans in Africa. The new business, with its own funding, was created to scale up operations and widen trade across Africa.

The launch of the $1 billion trade & distribution company coincided with the Global Africa Diaspora Day, which was celebrated at the fourth Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF 2025) in Algiers: a marketplace of ideas, deals, and possibilities that has earned itself a reputation as Africa’s true expo. The IATF has, since 2018, generated more than $118 billion in trade agreements. The event has been hosted by Egypt, South Africa and Algeria while Nigeria is waiting in line to host the next edition in 2027. Every fair is another stride in Africa’s largest project to date, namely the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). There have been many discussions concerning how the initiative will succeed.

During a virtual trade voice series, a discussion on Alternative Financing Solutions to Address Persisting Trade Finance Gap in Africa on Friday, 26 September 2025, Senior Manager, Trade Finance and Correspondent Banking, Afreximbank, Lina Iyok, said Africa has a lot of opportunities that are yet to be explored, especially in agriculture, technology, and startups.

Also, the manager, Supply Chain Finance, Trade Finance and Correspondent Banking, Afreximbank, Mr Michael Gichure, said during the discussion that Africa will partner with countries coming for genuine businesses in order to close the trade gap.

Agriculture and Food Security

Africa’s food import bill, totaling US$35 billion, is an untapped potential for regional trade in agriculture. The AfCFTA (African Continental Free Trade Area) was designed to promote cross-border grain trade through its rules of origin; however, non-tariff barriers—such as arbitrary import bans and stringent phytosanitary checks—continue to obstruct shipments. In South Africa, fruit exporters have reported delays of about two weeks at the East African borders due to multiple inspections, which reduced profit margins and hindered trade expansion.

$48bn In Deals

This year’s IATF concluded with a bang, resulting in $48.3 billion worth of trade and investment deals. Targets were smashed. Hopes were high. But the big question remains whether the deals will actually happen. Business analysts at the fair took notice and raised their eyebrows. Announcements are easy, they said. Implementation is the real work. Afreximbank pledged to follow through. The bank pledged to monitor every deal, whether it was funded or not, and press governments and private investors to follow through.

The acting director of economic development at the African Union, Patrick Ndzana Olomo, said with the right approach, Africa could achieve annual growth of seven to 10 per cent over the next decade. Olomo acknowledged that the growth will depend on infrastructure, governance, and cutting losses from corruption and illicit financial flows. It is important to note that without ports, rail lines, roads, and digital highways, no trade agreement can be successful. Africa’s deficiencies are still evident when considering the means of transportation.

The Kazungula Bridge, which connects Botswana and Zambia, is marred by bureaucratic delays, and the Lagos-Abidjan highway, a flagship corridor intended to connect five West African countries’ economies, is years behind schedule. A lot has not been done on it.

The fair was just a trading floor. It was also a stage where leaders preached about a new Africa, a continent powered by machines, vehicles, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, electronics, and processed foods. The fair revealed how Africa is gradually moving away from raw commodities, moving towards manufacturing and technology. The most dynamic potential of the AfCFTA is demonstrated by the digital services sector, which is expected to add about $180 billion to Africa’s GDP by 2025.

Fintech companies in Nigeria have expanded into new markets such as Kenya and Ghana by utilising the service protocols outlined in the agreement. But many cross-border dealings are still stuck in regulatory issues due to the lack of unified data protection laws and regulatory frameworks.

The issue is escalated by regulatory fragmentation. The duration of customs clearance still varies greatly, ranging from 24 hours in Morocco to more than 10 days in certain landlocked states in Nigeria. Harmonising customs documentation alone could boost trade volumes by 20%, according to a 2024 UNECA study.

The Role Of South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria

The role of the big three in power politics, Nigeria, South Africa, and Algeria, is essential to the success of the AfCFTA as well as its geopolitical complexity. These three biggest economies in Africa hold a strong power.

As the host of IATF 2025, Algeria is establishing itself as a hub for trade in North Africa by utilising its port infrastructure and energy exports to increase trade with countries in the South.

Nigeria is still Africa’s biggest consumer market, but the country’s liberalisation process has been slowed by protectionist domestic factors like import restrictions and exchange rate instability. Despite being accused of attempting to control supply chains, South Africa, with its diverse industrial base, is promoting technical standards for the entire continent to guarantee that its manufacturers can expand regionally.

Whether AfCFTA develops into a truly continental project or stays a patchwork of sub-regional agreements will depend on how these three powers align or misalign strategically.

The promise of the AfCFTA is still a work in progress for African companies. Nigeria recently banned the exportation of Shea products, but some stakeholders are still lamenting.

“The paperwork is still too much,” says Abiola Adeyemi, a shea product exporter from Lagos, Nigeria.

 “We still have to deal with multiple permits and unpredictable tariffs, even though we thought AfCFTA would simplify the trade.”

President and Chairman of Afreximbank, a Nigerian, Prof Benedict Oramah, while addressing delegates, said the IATF represents more than a fair. The gathering was a different field of battle for Africa’s economic freedom, but the same song of developing the agricultural sector kept resonating. Beyond the buzz of billion-dollar transactions, agriculture kept emerging as Africa’s future’s beating core.

The immediate past African Development Bank President, another Nigerian, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, insisted agriculture is “the place to be.”

Adesina has experience in the African agricultural sector because, in March 2025, he announced plans to launch a $500 million facility designed to unlock $10 billion in financing for smallholder farmers and small agribusiness enterprises across Africa.

Even though he didn’t launch the project before leaving office, he reminded the globe that Africa still has 65% of the world’s remaining arable area. Still, it fights with food insecurity and hunger, an area investors can explore. Experts at the fair said that farming was beyond mere subsistence. It was the path to riches. Africa could supply both itself and the world if it had better irrigation, new seed types, technology, and private financing.

While investors know where the oil is, those coming to Africa with Genetically Modified Seeds have a lot of work not only to enlighten, but to convince consumers, as a lot of them have been brainwashed on the global way of farming.

They agreed that agriculture is not about machetes and cutlasses any longer. But the people at the grassroots who lack awareness of the modern way of farming, both on equipment and produce, must be enlightened. The Algiers meeting was about agro-processing facilities, drones, satellites, and artificial intelligence, which many farmers in Africa lacked knowledge of. But this also presents an opportunity for investors.

The true armaments of the future were post-harvest storage, cold chains, and climate-resilient crops, which are lacking in Africa, especially the largest black nation on earth, Nigeria.

A participant from the International Finance Corporation, Femi Akinrebiyo, said Africa’s mineral riches were a treasure, additionally that the actual possibility is in green industrialisation. He asserted that keeping Africa impoverished would come from exporting raw resources.

According to him, value addition, renewable energy, and clean manufacturing could change the story. He said with solar, wind, hydro, and even green hydrogen, Africa stood poised to leapfrog into the future.

The talks in Algiers mirrored a basic fact: energy is not only about lights. It is about driving factories, funding schools, and energising businesses. Without it, creativity stays bottled up in the lab.

The Young Population

Beyond the unveiling of the $1 billion trade & distribution company, investors must know that Africa has a large number of young people without jobs. Moving into any sector in Africa is a market with human resources available.

The hidden African strength is the young people who kept asking questions in Algiers concerning their role in the development of the continent.

They are young, restless, creative, and if technology and innovative farming styles can be introduced to them, there will be a boom.

Africa’s young population, according to economists, is the hidden force of the continent.

According to Hanan Morsy, Chief Economist of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, the AfCFTA might increase intra-African trade by 45% and the greatest victors, we gathered, will be industry, technology, and agriculture. The actual basis would be youth, skills, and technology, though it was gathered.

According to analyst Husseini Hassan, Africa should make investments in skills, digital inclusion, and creative sectors like fashion and entertainment. He underlined that international cooperation was no longer discretionary, with many contending that investments in women, young business people, and local innovators should be front and centre.

Can Africa maintain its ground?

The fair came at a time when tensions around the world were increasing. Tariffs on several industries levied by US President Donald Trump also affected Africa.

Experts say Africa should be more strategic going forward by dealing with countries with fewer tariffs.

But Africa had to present a united front,” Hassan said, insisting that working with the US, China, India, Brazil, Russia, or any other countries must be based on intense negotiations and not a “Greek” gift.

“A perfect illustration was the gold market. Zimbabwe was profiting as prices surged. But how much more richness may be unleashed if Africa refined its own gold, oil, and gas rather than shipping them raw? Hassan asked.

With significant local bank support, a Nigerian pipeline business was planning a $170 million investment. Proof, according to Hassan, shows that Africans were putting their money where their mouths were. The IATF platform, for Hassan, was Africa’s opportunity to know itself, coordinate its strengths, and confront the world stage, not just trade. Innovation, youth, infrastructure, agriculture, green energy, every word became a drumbeat inside the IATF halls.

Delegates departed with billions of dollars’ worth of signed documents. Whether those publications will turn into roads, power lines, employment, and factories depends on Africa’s future actions before they gather in Nigeria.

The IATF will travel to Nigeria. Once more to evaluate promises against fulfillment. Another opportunity to observe whether Africa is prepared to trade with itself, develop with itself, and proudly stand tall in the world economy with genuine partners.

Algiers inspired a fresh chapter for commerce, with one billion dollars. Agreements worth 48 billion dollars were signed. And a continent daring, once again, to dream of this time economically will be tested by its international business partners.

A trade affairs analyst, Mr Mike Eze, noted that consumers are also yet to be rewarded.

He said that while tariffs in some markets have reduced, price reductions are restricted, owing to continuing logistics costs and inefficiency of supply chains.

Eze argues that without strong enforcement of trade facilitation mechanisms and enhanced transparency, AfCFTA could be an elitist project that fails to reflect the reality of ordinary Africans.

On the way forward, Eze said the IATF 2025 provided a unifying opportunity to shift from prospect to performance. That is, he disclosed, closing infrastructure gaps, dismantling regulatory bottlenecks, and creating business and consumer confidence in Africa.

Most significantly, it requires political will — and especially from Algeria, Nigeria, and South Africa — to turn AfCFTA into more than a list of signatures. But their next convergence in Nigeria will reveal whether Africa means business or not.