IATF has emerged as one of the continent’s most powerful platforms for turning Africa’s ambition for economic integration into real trade, investment and industrial opportunities.
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IATF has emerged as one of the continent’s most powerful platforms for turning Africa’s ambition for economic integration into real trade, investment and industrial opportunities.
By Kanayo Awani
CAIRO, Egypt – Africa’s push to increase trade among its own countries is gaining momentum, but the continent now faces a more important question: how does it turn that momentum into sustained economic transformation?
The opportunity is enormous. Stronger intra-African trade could unlock new investment, accelerate industrialisation and enable African countries to process and add value to their abundant natural resources rather than exporting them largely as raw materials.
According to the Africa in Figures 2025 report released by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), intra-African trade increased by 5.4% in 2024 to reach US$206.6 billion. The continued implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is expected to provide further impetus to this growth.
But increasing trade between African countries will require more than removing tariffs. Businesses still face significant barriers, including limited knowledge of markets, uncertainty around regulations, inadequate trade finance and difficulty identifying reliable partners in other countries.
For many African enterprises, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, the challenge is not finding demand. It is finding the information, financing, networks and practical pathways needed to reach that demand.
This is where the Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF) has become increasingly important.
IATF has established itself as Africa’s premier trade and investment marketplace and an important instrument for advancing the continent’s economic integration agenda.
The fourth edition, IATF2025 in Algiers, demonstrated the scale of that opportunity, generating US$50 billion in trade and investment deals.
The significance of the Fair goes beyond the headline numbers. IATF brings businesses, investors, governments and other economic actors into the same marketplace, helping African companies find customers, suppliers, investors and strategic partners across borders.
The result is a practical mechanism for turning the ambitions of AfCFTA into commercial relationships and, ultimately, stronger African value chains.
IATF2025 recorded significant growth in participation, deal-making and transaction value. More importantly, it demonstrated that there is both appetite and capacity for African businesses to expand beyond their domestic markets.
The challenge now is to make those connections work beyond the seven days of the Fair.
According to 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 US$8.5 billion for each edition of the Fair since 2018.
The economic impact extends well beyond participating companies. Nearly 360,000 small businesses and SMEs have benefited from IATF, including thousands of women- and youth-led enterprises.
The employment impact is equally significant. For every US$1 million invested in IATF, approximately 42 jobs are created. Across each edition, this translates into more than half a million direct employment opportunities.
These figures point to a broader reality: trade fairs can be much more than exhibitions. When properly connected to finance, market intelligence and follow-up mechanisms, they can become engines of enterprise development, investment and job creation.
Africa does not lack businesses capable of competing in continental markets. What it often lacks are efficient systems for connecting those businesses to the right opportunities.
An entrepreneur in one African country may have a competitive product but little knowledge of demand in another market. A manufacturer may have the capacity to expand but lack trade finance. An investor may be looking for opportunities but struggle to identify credible businesses.
Closing these information and connectivity gaps will be critical if AfCFTA is to deliver its full potential.
Digital platforms such as IATF Virtual therefore have an important role to play. By keeping businesses connected after the physical Fair, maintaining exhibitor visibility and enabling governments and corporations to follow up on leads, the platform can help extend IATF beyond a single event.
For SMEs in particular, digital engagement can reduce some of the costs associated with travel, logistics and participation in international trade events.
The longer-term opportunity is to build a permanent digital marketplace that allows African businesses to identify opportunities, establish relationships and pursue transactions throughout the year.
The spotlight now turns to Nigeria, which will host IATF2027 in Lagos from 5 to 11 November 2027.
The event is expected to bring together businesses, investors, policymakers, researchers, creatives and innovators from across Africa and beyond.
The scale of the ambition is significant. IATF2027 is targeting more than US$50 billion in trade and investment deals, more than 100,000 visitors and over 2,500 exhibitors.
Under the theme “Global Africa, Smart Trade: From Market Access to Market Power,” the Fair will seek to move the conversation beyond simply accessing African markets towards building the capacity to shape those markets.
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That distinction matters.
Africa has historically occupied a disproportionate position at the raw-material end of global value chains. The next phase of continental integration must therefore focus not only on increasing trade, but on determining what Africa produces, where products are processed, who owns the businesses involved and how much value remains on the continent.
The scale of IATF’s growth demonstrates the potential.
Across its first four editions, the Fair attracted more than 180,000 participants and 6,600 exhibitors from 132 countries, generating more than US$167 billion in cumulative trade and investment deals.
The message from these figures is clear: the market exists.
The task now is to build the systems that allow African enterprises to capture a greater share of it.
Nigeria’s role as host of IATF2027 is particularly significant.
As one of Africa’s largest economies and most populous countries, Nigeria brings a vast domestic market, extensive natural resources and substantial industrial potential to the continental trade agenda.
Its oil and gas sector remains important, but the country’s wider resource base, including solid minerals such as lithium, iron ore and gold, as well as its agricultural commodities, offers opportunities to develop industries linked to emerging continental and global value chains.
The challenge is to move beyond extracting and exporting resources towards processing, manufacturing and creating higher-value products.
This is precisely where AfCFTA can become transformative.
A more integrated African market could make it easier for Nigerian manufacturers to source inputs from other African countries, sell finished products into new markets and develop regional supply chains.
The same principle applies across the continent.
But businesses need to be prepared to take advantage of these opportunities.
In Nigeria, capacity-building programmes, export-readiness clinics, certification support and partnerships with institutions such as the Nigerian Export Promotion Council and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria are helping SMEs understand what is required to trade across African borders.
Lagos is also strengthening the infrastructure needed to support this ambition, including investments in the Lekki Deep Sea Port, logistics corridors, industrial clusters and business development hubs.
These investments matter because trade agreements alone cannot move goods. Businesses need ports, roads, logistics networks, finance, standards, digital systems and reliable information.
Africa has already demonstrated that there is demand for stronger intra-African trade.
IATF has shown that African businesses are willing to meet, negotiate, invest and trade with one another. AfCFTA provides the continental framework for expanding those relationships.
The next challenge is scale.
Africa must convert individual deals into enduring supply chains, trade relationships into industries and market access into market power.
That will require governments to continue improving trade infrastructure and regulatory systems, financial institutions to expand access to trade finance, and businesses to invest in competitiveness, standards and export readiness.
It will also require Africa to maintain the momentum created by platforms such as IATF.
With Nigeria preparing to host the Fair in Lagos in 2027, the continent has another opportunity to move from demonstrating the potential of intra-African trade to expanding it dramatically.
The question is no longer whether Africa can trade more with itself.
It is whether the continent can build the institutions, infrastructure and business networks needed to ensure that African businesses capture the value created by that trade.
The opportunity is already visible. The next step is turning it into market power.
Kanayo Awani is the Executive Vice-President, Intra-African Trade & Export Development Bank at the African Export-Import Bank
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