LAGOS, Sept 7 – Africa has significant room to expand trade between its own economies as governments and businesses seek to accelerate investment, industrialization and the development of regional value chains.
Kanayo Awani, Executive Vice-President for Intra-African Trade and Export Development at African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), wrote in an op-ed published by CNBC Africa that the continent has an opportunity to use stronger intra-African commerce to accelerate industrial development, particularly through processing and adding value to its natural resources.
According to Afreximbank’s Africa in Figures 2025 report, intra-African trade increased 5.4% in 2024 to $206.6 billion. Continued implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is expected to provide further support for trade between African economies.
Awani said closing persistent gaps in trade, investment and market intelligence will be critical to allowing African businesses to expand across borders. Many companies continue to face limited information about market opportunities, uncertainty around regulations and restricted access to trade finance, creating barriers to cross-border expansion.
IATF emerges as a platform for African commerce
The Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF) has become one of the continent’s most prominent platforms for connecting businesses, investors and policymakers and facilitating cross-border commercial activity.
The fourth edition, IATF2025 in Algiers, generated more than $50 billion in trade and investment deals, reinforcing the role of the event in expanding market access and connecting African companies with potential partners.
The fair has increasingly moved beyond being an exhibition platform, providing a mechanism for businesses to establish partnerships, attract investment and develop regional and continental value chains.
Data from the event’s previous editions points to the growing scale of the platform.
Across its first four editions, IATF recorded more than 180,000 participants, 6,600 exhibitors from 132 countries, and more than $167 billion in cumulative trade and investment deals.
The figures point to significant commercial appetite within Africa. The challenge increasingly lies in creating efficient mechanisms that allow businesses to identify opportunities, find appropriate partners and convert those relationships into transactions.
IATF2027 brings Africa’s trade marketplace to Lagos
The focus now turns to Nigeria, which will host IATF2027 in Lagos from November 5 to 11, 2027. The event is expected to bring together businesses, investors, policymakers, researchers, creatives and innovators from across Africa and beyond.
Organisers are targeting more than $50 billion in trade and investment deals, over 100,000 visitors and more than 2,500 exhibitors, potentially making the Lagos edition the largest IATF to date.
The event will be held under the theme “Global Africa, Smart Trade: From Market Access to Market Power,” reflecting an ambition to move Africa beyond simply participating in global commerce toward increasing its ability to shape trade and capture more value from its own markets and resources.
SMEs remain central to the trade opportunity
The impact of IATF extends beyond headline deal values. According to the report “The Impact of the Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF) on Development and Trade, 2018–2024,” 62.4% of concluded deals directly supported intra-African trade, representing more than $8.5 billion per edition since the fair began in 2018.
Nearly 360,000 small businesses and SMEs have benefited from the platform, including thousands of enterprises led by women and young entrepreneurs.
The employment impact is also significant. The report estimates that every $1 million invested into IATF generates approximately 42 jobs, meaning each edition supports more than 500,000 direct employment opportunities across the continent.
The figures suggest that the challenge facing African businesses is increasingly about connectivity and access rather than a lack of commercial capacity.
Digital platforms could extend IATF beyond the fair
Afreximbank is also seeking to maintain business connections beyond the physical event through platforms such as IATF Virtual. The digital platform is designed to keep exhibitors visible, allow governments and corporations to follow up on commercial leads and facilitate year-round engagement between businesses across different sectors.
For smaller companies, digital trade platforms could help reduce some of the costs associated with international travel, logistics and physical participation in trade events.
The broader ambition is for such infrastructure to evolve into a permanent marketplace supporting African commerce throughout the year.
Nigeria positioned as a key driver of AfCFTA
Nigeria’s role as host of IATF2027 comes with particular significance because of the country’s economic scale, resource base and industrial potential.
As one of Africa’s largest economies and most populous countries, Nigeria has a substantial domestic market and a wide range of resources that could support continental value chains.
Its oil and gas industry, deposits of minerals including lithium, iron ore and gold, and agricultural production provide opportunities to expand processing and value addition within Africa rather than exporting commodities primarily in raw form.
Awani said African businesses must take full advantage of the opportunities created by the continental free trade agreement as implementation advances.
Nigeria has already introduced initiatives aimed at improving the readiness of local companies for continental trade, including capacity-building programmes, export readiness clinics, certification support and partnerships involving institutions such as the Nigerian Export Promotion Council and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria.
Lagos builds infrastructure around the trade opportunity
Lagos is also strengthening the physical infrastructure needed to support increased trade, investments in the Lekki Deep Sea Port, logistics corridors and industrial clusters are intended to improve the movement of goods while creating a stronger ecosystem for businesses operating in the country’s commercial capital.
The development of business support hubs is also aimed at improving access to services and opportunities for smaller enterprises.
For Africa’s broader trade agenda, the challenge now is to convert the momentum generated by IATF and AfCFTA into sustained commercial activity.
The continent has demonstrated demand for greater economic integration and has built platforms capable of connecting businesses and investors. The next step is ensuring those connections translate into larger trade flows, deeper regional value chains and more investment in African production.
With Nigeria preparing to host the continent’s largest trade and investment marketplace in Lagos, IATF2027 will provide a major test of whether Africa can turn its growing appetite for intra-African commerce into sustained economic scale.
