The Intra-African trade grew by 7.2 per cent in 2023, according to the African Trade Report 2024.
Within the continent, Southern Africa emerged as the dominant driver of intra-regional trade, accounting for 41.4 per cent of the total volume of inter-state transactions on the continent during the period studied.
The report, titled “African Trade Report 2024: Climate implications of the AfCFTA implementation,” shows that trade between African countries totaled $192 billion, representing 15 per cent of the continent’s total trade that year, up from 13.6 per cent the previous year.
However, these figures hide wide disparities between Africa’s different sub-regions.
Southern Africa emerged as the main driver of intra-African trade with a share of 41.4 per cent, followed by West Africa (25.7 per cent), East Africa (14.1 per cent), North Africa (12.4 per cent) and Central Africa (6.6 per cent).
In contrast to the growth in intra-regional trade, the report shows that Africa’s total intra- and extra-regional trade will decline by 6.3 per cent to around $1,300 billion in 2023.
This decline can be explained by a number of factors, such as the fall in global demand for commodities, international geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East, persistently high interest rates and the economic slowdown in China and some developed countries.
The volatility of oil prices, which account for more than 36 per cent of Africa’s exports, has also had a negative impact on the continent’s trade performance. Crude oil exports have fallen from $99.82 per barrel in 2022 to $82.62 per barrel in 2023.
Major oil exporters such as Nigeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Libya are particularly hard hit. Nigeria, for example, will see its global trade fall by 19.08 per cent by 2023. The report also shows that Africa’s main trading partners are changing with the emergence of Asian economies as key players in global demand and growth.
While the European Union’s share of Africa’s exports will fall from 47.8 per cent in the 1990s to 26.8 per cent between 2014 and 2023, Asia’s share will rise from 4.5 per cent to 26 per cent over the same period.
MN/ac/lb/GIK/APA