The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has urged Nigeria and the rest of Africa to strengthen intra-African trade and resilience to protect against geopolitical shocks.

In a recently released Trade and Development Finance Brief, titled: ‘Africa’s Trade and Investment Landscape’, which examines the structural challenges shaping Africa’s trade performance and investment outlook in an increasingly uncertain global environment, it pointed out that Africa’s trade landscape remained heavily dominated by the export of raw materials, including agricultural products, oil, gas and minerals.

The report, however, regretted that imports continued to be heavily skewed towards manufactured goods and machinery.

The report noted that the existing export-import configuration leaves many African economies overly exposed to unfavourable terms of trade shock on account of external headwinds, including commodity price volatility, geopolitical tensions and associated global supply chain disruptions.

According to the report, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) remained central to efforts aimed at diversifying the continent’s trade base, strengthening regional value chains and increasing intra-African trade.

It further expressed that alongside the African Union’s Agenda 2063, the AfCFTA provides a practical framework for integrating fragmented markets, expanding industrial production and boosting productivity, with intra-African exports projected to increase by more than 20 per cent within a decade as implementation advances.

Also, the report further highlighted the importance of scaling investment in trade-enabling infrastructure, including energy, transport, communications networks, ports and logistics systems, to reduce the cost of doing business and improve cross-border trade flows.

It expressed that targeted infrastructure investment could support industrialisation, strengthen regional specialisation and improve Africa’s competitiveness as an investment destination.

It also pointed to a wider set of priorities for strengthening the continent’s trade and investment ecosystem, including regulatory coherence, institutional strengthening, economic diversification, improved access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises and greater use of digital financial technologies.

Besides, the report stated that domestic and foreign investment were increasing across many African economies, notwithstanding the observed dominance of foreign investment.

It further mentioned that the direction of investment flows was uneven across sub-regions, with Eastern and Southern Africa receiving a larger share of foreign direct investment compared to Western and Central Africa.

Afreximbank said the findings reinforced the need for coordinated action to expand trade finance, improve trade-enabling infrastructure, deepen regional integration and accelerate value addition across the continent.

Managing Director, Research for AfreximBank, Dr Yemi Kale, said regional development finance institutions, including AfreximBank, were playing an increasing role in supporting intra-African trade through trade finance and related initiatives.