This article was created with support from uneca
Africa needs to find ways to better harness its strengths, such as a young and growing population and abundant natural resources, allowing it to better offset the challenges presented by global headwinds.
In addition to global concerns about increased trade restrictions and supply chain disruptions, Africa is also facing many internal challenges and slowing growth, said Hanan Morsy, ECA's Deputy Director-General (Program) and ECA's Chief Economist in the opening session of COM2025.
However, the continent's strengths, including opportunities to bounce back to legacy challenges in technology, position it well to generate sustainable and inclusive development.
Currently, the progress in increased in African trade compared to total trade is limited to around 15.8%, which is significantly less than other regions.
However, on the contrary, the profile of intracontinental trade is more positive than global trade, with a higher manufacturing level of export levels of 46% compared to 24% of value-added goods (2019-2023) as a percentage of global trade.
The latter remains rooted in goods with only two product segments that form more than 52% of Africa's total trade (fuels, minerals and metals).
However, the profile of Intra-African trade “tells us that there are great opportunities to use trade to create jobs at higher wages when increasing the value chain and improving the quality of growth.”
Deeper integration could produce many positive results, along with greater industrialization, including increased intra-African trade, 1.2%, 7.3%, imports, and 6.9% imports of the continent.
Simply cutting restrictive regulations could increase in in Africa's digital trade by 21.5%, she said.
Another game-changer in Africa's development is the growth of the Pan-African payment system, which could reduce the forex problem by saving $5 billion in trade costs and allowing trade in local currencies.
Africa's development financial institutions need to be fully capitalized to support trade, she added.
The representatives of the question time called for the eradication and dumping of non-tariff barriers and illegal trade practices. Questions have been raised about the lack of mainstreaming of technology and how to strengthen capital markets.
