African countries and their regional economic communities (RECs) are pursuing integration through free trade and developing customs unions and a common market. Eventually, these efforts are expected to converge in an African Common Market (ACM) and an African Economic Union (AEU), whereby economic, fiscal, social and sectoral policies will be continentally uniform. Through such an economic marketplace, Africa can strengthen its economic independence and empowerment with respect to the rest of the world.
Trade has made and will continue to make a tremendous contribution to many developed and developing countries. It enables countries to specialise and export goods that they can produce cheaply in exchange for what others can provide at a lower cost. Trade also provides the material means in terms of the capital goods, machinery and raw and semi-finished goods that are critical for growth. This is a driving force behind economic development. If trade is a vehicle to growth and development, then removing the barriers that inhibit it can only help to increase its impact. Thus, free trade is an important instrument for removing such impediments and promoting greater levels of trade among African countries.
This Policy Brief presents figures and analyses concerning Africa’s trade flows and patterns, with particular reference to intra-regional and intra-African trade. It provides data on the direction and structure of Africa’s intra-continental trade and with the rest of the world to identify the nature and scope of intra-African trade between 2000 and 2007. These figures are based on data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Direction of Trade statistics (DOT) of February 2009 and on trade data from 1995 to 2006 using the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Handbook 2008, which, unlike IMF DOTS, permits trade flows by products to be analyzed. The Policy Brief provides data and discusses trends in intra-African trade by and countries’ performance in intra-African trade in general.