By: Nghiinomenwa-vali Hangala
At the aggregate level, the 2023–2024 intra-African exports fell by more than US$6.3 billion, which disproportionately affected the part of Africa’s trade basket that circulates within the continent.
That said, most intra-African trade is linked to the two biggest economies, South Africa and Nigeria, given their value addition abilities.
This is according to the Trade Law Centre (Tralac) Trade Brief titled Intra-Africa Trade Update – An Analysis by Region and GTAP Industrial Sectors, released last week.
The brief used mostly 2023 to 2024 trade data to assess intra-African performance(s), as 2025 trade data remains incomplete for many African countries. However, the trade performance of South Africa and Egypt was available from 2023 to 2025.
The brief indicated that between 2023 and 2024, intra-African exports dropped by 8.1% (from $78.1 billion to $71.8 billion), a much steeper decline than the 2.5% dip seen in exports to the rest of the world.
This lowered the intra-continental trade share to 16.6%, according to Tralac.
The steepest intra-African contractions were in stone and glass products, which fell from US$6.52 billion to US$3.44 billion, and transport equipment, which fell from US$5.85 billion to US$4.11 billion.
These two sectors together roughly explain 76% of the total intra-African decline.
Chemicals also fell materially, from US$7.91 billion to US$7.05 billion, meaning that three sectors alone account for almost 90 percent of the net contraction, Tralac research found.
Several other sectors weakened more moderately, including vegetables, minerals, textiles and clothing, wood products, hides and skins, and footwear.
By contrast, fuels edged up, machinery and electrical products increased slightly, food products rose marginally, and rubber and plastics remained positive.
Tralac explains that the key analytical issue is not only that intra-African trade declined more than Africa’s extra-African trade in 2024, but also that the decline was highly uneven across sectors and exporting nodes.
The brief also noted that some of the sectors that are valuable for regional value chains and industrial deepening weakened sharply, while others continued to expand.
In contrast to Africa’s exports to the rest of the world, the picture during the period under review is different.
In chemicals, intra-African trade fell by about 10.9 percent even though Africa’s extra-African exports in the same broad category increased slightly.
In transport equipment, intra-African trade fell by almost 29.8 percent while extra-African exports rose modestly.
In food products, intra-African trade was nearly flat, yet Africa’s exports to the rest of the world expanded by more than 11 percent.
According to Tralac, this indicates that the weakness was not simply sector-specific in a global sense; it was specifically on regional African demand, regional supply chains, and/or the frictions affecting trade within the continent.
In 2024, the intra-African share of Africa’s exports remained relatively high in categories such as chemicals, machinery and electrical products, rubber and plastics, miscellaneous manufactures, wood products, and footwear.
Tralac shared that intra-African trade is disproportionately concentrated in processed goods, light manufacturing, intermediate inputs, and regionally traded manufactures, rather than in the resource-dominated export basket that Africa sells to the rest of the world.
“That is economically encouraging from an industrialisation perspective, but it also means that downturns in regionally traded manufactures and construction-linked products can depress intra-African trade more sharply than Africa’s external
trade,” the report read.
The exporter evidence for 2023–2025 shows two distinct regional trade geographies. Egypt’s intra- African exports rose from US$13.9 billion in 2023 to US$14.6 billion in 2025.
Egypt’s export profile remained heavily concentrated in North Africa, which accounted for about 56.3 percent of its intra-African exports in 2025, followed by East Africa at 25.8 percent.
South Africa presents a different picture.
Its intra-African exports rose from US$58.8 billion in 2023 to US$65.6 billion in 2025, with expansion in both 2024 and 2025.
The trade structure remained overwhelmingly centred on Southern Africa, which absorbed about 81.5 percent of South Africa’s intra-African exports in 2025.
South Africa’s top five markets in 2025 – Mozambique, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia -accounted for almost 68 percent of its total intra-African exports.
For Egypt, East Africa remained centred on food products, chemicals, sugar, paper, and metals, but the composition changed materially between 2023 and 2025.
Food products remained the largest sector, yet they declined by about 10 percent; chemicals fell by almost 30 percent; and paper products also weakened. Offsetting these declines were strong increases in ferrous metals, vegetable oils and fats, and machinery and equipment.
In South Africa, the sectoral picture is broader and more manufacturing-intensive.
In Southern Africa, the largest absolute gains came from chemical products, electricity, machinery and equipment, food products, electrical equipment, and motor vehicles, while the weaker sectors were ferrous metals, petroleum and coal products, and other extractions.
“This is an important structural signal: South Africa’s strongest regional growth within the continent is occurring not in raw materials alone, but in manufactured goods, energy, machinery, and processed food,” read the report.
