Bilateral trade between Africa and Europe could reach $1 trillion over the next decade by integrating value chains and a revitalised trade corridor, a recent report has said.

As the global economy undergoes a fundamental shift towards a multipolar landscape, a report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has highlighted the strategic need to revitalise the Africa-Europe corridor.

Titled: ‘Strengthening the Africa-Europe Corridor: Strategic Imperative in a Multipolar World,’ the report revealed that deliberate and well-orchestrated value chain integration could double bilateral trade from $545 billion today to $1 trillion over the next decade.

A joint resilience and growth agenda of this nature would both accelerate Africa’s industrialisation while strengthening Europe’s competitiveness.

Africa and Europe are long-standing partners with deep economic and cultural ties, underpinned by geographic proximity and complementary socio-economic dynamics. However, the report highlights that the corridor has lost momentum in the last few decades.

While Europe remains Africa’s leading partner across all major flows (trade, investment, finance, and mobility) the economic corridor has seen trade and investment grow more slowly than global averages over the last two decades.
The report warned that at the same time, evolving trade patterns and technological concentration are now reshaping both continents’ global positioning.

Increasing trade deficits and limited value capture in the global digital and Artificial Intelligence (AI) economy, highlight significant white space for Africa and Europe to deepen bilateral collaboration and jointly scale local production.

In addition to their shared challenges, complementary strengths make both continents ‘objective allies,’ Africa has a young, rapidly urbanising workforce and abundant natural resources, while Europe offers high-end industrial capabilities, capital and technological expertise, the report said.

Realising this opportunity would require focusing on a select set of high-potential industrial clusters where Africa has clear structural strengths and Europe has strong strategic interests.

The report proposed 15 priority industrial clusters with high potential to deepen value chain integration, spanning resource-based goods, light manufacturing and tradable services.

These include moving African activities down the value chain, from upstream resource extraction to midstream processing as well as developing agro-processing in several parts of the continent.

The report also noted nearshoring of semi-processed goods for European value chains, such as in the automotive and textile sectors and scaling tradable services across the digital, tourism, and cultural and creative industries.
The report highlighted two illustrative case studies where deepened value chain integration could create greater value for both continents.

While Zambia and DRC hold 70-75 per cent of global cobalt as well as 15-17 per cent of copper production, Chinese companies dominate midstream and downstream of the clean tech industry.

Europe could support Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in their ambition to capture greater midstream value, while securing supply for its own emerging cleantech sector.

Also, while West Africa dominates global cashew nut production; it exports over 70 per cent unprocessed to mostly Asian markets.

Vietnam has a large processing capacity despite limited domestic production and is responsible for 70 per cent of Europe’s cashew imports.

Integrating the Africa-Europe cashew value chain corridor more directly could make it grow from $220 million today to $500-800 million over the next decade, it said.

Capturing this $1 trillion opportunity requires immediate, coordinated action to address structural constraints such as reliable power, logistics efficiency, trade barriers, offtake agreements to catalyse investments in new value chains, as well as financial guarantees mechanisms to mobilise private capital.

BCG Managing Director, Patrick Dupoux, noted that it has become clear that Africa and Europe are not just economic partners, but objective allies in a fragmented world.

“Both now urgently need to strengthen their industrial and technological competitiveness. Their complementarity is structural. Shifting from trade to co-production offers a rare win-win: sustainable growth for Africa and strategic resilience for Europe,” he said.