News / Investment in infrastructure and tech the key to Africa's trade future

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Africa’s growth trajectory for intercontinental trade is likely to continue well beyond external factors, but cross-border trade within Africa could pose more of a challenge. 

According to Container Trades Statistics (CTS) teu volume data for September, Far East to Sub-Saharan Africa trade volumes were up 35.2% from September 2024.  

This growth peaked earlier in the year, amid the July height of the China-US trade war, to reach 48.2% higher year on year, largely to do with China finding new consumer markets as its exports to the US declined.  

Further, carriers forced to divert from the Suez Canal around the Cape of Good Hope have pushed more services and regional relay cargo through ports in South Africa, such as Durban and Cape Town. 

However, despite Africa’s growth coinciding largely with external factors, Mohammed Akoojee, CEO & MD of DP World Sub-Saharan Africa, told The Loadstar Podcast the region was likely to continue to see this level of growth beyond the trade war and Red Sea crisis. 

“ I think despite the lobal events around trade and security concerns in areas like the Red Sea, Africa has got massive potential in terms of its consumer market,” he said. 

“It’s a continent with more than a billion young people. It’s got all the natural resources and it’s got good growth. Prior to all these issues, we’ve seen companies taking Africa on as a future growth market,” Mr Akoojee explained. 

“I don’t think that if those issues get changed or resolved, the story of Africa changes.” 

But while Africa is now on a solid growth trajectory for intercontinental trade, Mr Akoojee warned that cross-border trade between countries within Africa is more of a challenge. 

One of the biggest “pain points” he identified was the reliance on road freight. 

“The majority of product moves on road in Africa once it gets into the hinterland, the rail infrastructure is still relatively underdeveloped and it needs investment. 

“As those investments come and infrastructure improves, it’ll enable rail to become quite an important part of the hinterland transport system. We do need combination of road and rail.,” he explained. 

Another big barrier to efficient trade within Africa, he added, was that wait times at borders in the hinterland “are too long”. 

He explained: “That is just because there are a of lot of manual customs processes that are then repeated, so if you cross the border from one country to another, you do the same thing over and over,” he explained. 

“The EU as a trading zone is very efficient. Intra-Europe trade is near 50% [of its total trade], intra-Asia trade is like 50%, but intra-Africa trade is 12% or 13%. That’s too low, and it’s because we don’t have the same efficiency from our customs and border control, and good enough road and rail infrastructure.” 

Mr Akoojee suggested that these pain points could be addressed by a combination of investment in road and rail infrastructure, dry ports to create hubs in the hinterland, and digital technology to make customs more effective and efficient. 

“Obviously as part of the Africa Free Trade Agreement, digitising customs processes in the hinterland is very important; it’s a big initiative that we are certainly trying to support as an organisation,” he said. 

Digitally enabling and integrating customs processes, Mr Akoojee explained, would mean full checks wouldn’t need to be repeated at each border, and shipments could even be pre-cleared when entering a port.