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August 31, 2025 | 2 months ago
The IATF, a hub for African businesses: A good starting point for continental integration
The IATF represents a good starting point for the African Continental Free Trade Area project. This project is dear to the continent's leaders, who aspire to enable Africans to benefit from their wealth.
The question is whether the IATF will provide the drive for a new African economic plan based much more on cooperation between African countries, starting with the strengthening of trade in a local market worth trillions of dollars. Long reduced to its role as a supplier of raw materials, Africa, which represents one of the largest niches for economic growth, wants to reverse the existing situation in favour of the economic development of the continent's countries. The continent is rich in natural resources, including cobalt, uranium, gold, lithium, and manganese, whose identified reserves represent more than 75% of global potential and its energy assets with large production capacities, whether in hydrocarbons or solar energy. Therefore, holding this fair in Algeria would contribute significantly to the realization of the African dream. This situation cannot be achieved without strengthening cooperation between the continent's economic players and boosting trade. It is a way of capitalising on one of the drivers of economic growth: a population of over 1.4 billion people with an estimated consumption of $2.5 trillion by 2030. In other words, "a journey of 1,000 kilometres begins with a single step," a quote that now applies to the African economy as it seeks to free itself from a burden long borne by the continent's countries. In this wake, Africa is now one of the world's largest importers of finished products, lacking a local industry capable of meeting the growing market needs. This situation weakens the continent by increasing its dependence on raw material exports. Thanks to its considerable natural and human resources, which remain largely untapped, the continent offers a multitude of opportunities for investors wishing to contribute to its development, raise it to the rank of a global economic power, and break with its history of dependence and vulnerability. Demographic dynamism is also driving rapid urbanization and opening up new investment opportunities.
Africa is thus the fastest urbanizing region in the world, with more than 500 million new city dwellers expected by 2040. There are many challenges to be overcome, a view supported by Ishak Kherchi, the director of the École supérieure de commerce, who highlighted the several challenges facing the continent despite its abundance of natural and human resources. "The real challenge for Africa today lies in its ability to develop these resources locally, with a shared vision that includes a massive effort to improve education and higher education, scientific research, and technological innovation, to enable the emergence of African expertise in local transformation," he explained. The economist advocates the need to accelerate continental economic integration, a major focus of the next edition of the IATF, while noting that intra-African trade still accounts for only 14 to 16% of total trade, compared to more than 60% in Europe.
August 31, 2025 | 
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