The numbers tell one story. In 2025, China-Africa trade reached a record $348 billion, with Chinese exports to Africa rising to $225 billion and African exports to China reaching $123 billion. By any measure, this is a relationship of enormous scale – and one that has expanded dramatically over the past two decades.<\/p>\n
But there is another story running alongside the headline figures, and it is less comfortable. “The deficit remains overwhelmingly on the African side,” Bekele-Thomas told the gathering, “and the structure of trade is still defined far more by raw material flows than by African industrial depth.”<\/p>\n
It was this tension that Nardos Bekele-Thomas, CEO of AUDA-NEPAD, placed at the centre of her address. Her argument was not that the relationship is failing – it is clearly not – but that it has yet to deliver the structural economic transformation the continent needs. “The issue before us is no longer whether Africa trades with China. It clearly does – and at scale. The real issue is how Africa trades with China, in what form, at what level of value, and with what developmental outcome.”<\/p>\n
The zero-tariff moment – and its limits<\/p>\n
The immediate backdrop to her remarks was China’s announcement that from 1 May 2026, it will implement zero-tariff treatment for imports from the 53 African countries with which it has diplomatic relations. Politically, the move carries real weight. At a time when much of the global trading system is moving in the opposite direction – towards greater protectionism and narrower market access – China’s decision represents a meaningful opening. Bekele-Thomas described it as “a major political signal” arriving “at a time when the global trading system is under stress and many economies are becoming more protectionist rather than more open.”<\/p>\n
But she was equally clear about what tariff preferences, on their own, can and cannot achieve. “Tariff preferences, by themselves, do not industrialise economies. They lower one barrier. They do not build production systems. They do not finance enterprise growth. They do not fix logistics. They do not create standards capacity.”<\/p>\n
The empirical case for this view is already there. Even before this latest expansion, around 70 percent of African exports to China were entering duty-free, with another 22 percent facing tariffs below five percent. “That tells us something very important,” she said. “The central constraint has never been tariffs alone. The deeper constraint has been productive readiness – the ability to produce at scale, meet standards consistently, finance orders, move goods competitively, and supply markets with reliability.”<\/p>\n
She put it plainly: “China has opened a door. But a door is not a factory. It is not a corridor. It is not a testing laboratory. It is not trade finance. And it is not an industrial policy.”<\/p>\n
Value, not just volume<\/p>\n
Where Bekele-Thomas centred much of her argument was on the composition of trade rather than its overall size. “If Africa continues to send crude oil, copper, cobalt and iron ore into the Chinese market while importing machinery, electronics, solar equipment and other higher-value goods,” she cautioned, “then zero tariffs will alter the margin of trade without changing its structure.”<\/p>\n
The real opportunity, she argued, “lies in using this opening to move more African goods further up the value chain – in horticulture, textiles, cocoa derivatives, processed foods, selected light manufactures, and other semi-processed and finished products that allow the continent to retain more value before export.”<\/p>\n
Critically, she argued this cannot be achieved in pieces. “No single African economy, acting alone, will maximise this opening across multiple sectors at the scale required.” Regional production systems, corridor-based value chains, and the architecture of the AfCFTA offer the more realistic path. By 2035, the AfCFTA could increase Africa’s total exports by almost 29 percent, raise intra-African exports by more than 81 percent, and grow exports to non-African countries by 19 percent. “Africa will not build durable export competitiveness for China – or for any other major market – without first building stronger regional value chains, larger integrated production systems, and more efficient continental logistics.”<\/p>\n
Three strategic shifts<\/p>\n
Bekele-Thomas outlined three shifts she believes are essential if this moment is to translate into lasting transformation.<\/p>\n
The first is moving from fragmented national responses to a coordinated African strategy. “The risk before us is not only that Africa may move too slowly. It is that Africa may move in pieces.” A market opening of this scale, she argued, “cannot be approached through 53 disconnected export pushes, 53 separate market signals, and 53 competing attempts to secure the same buyers, the same quota space, and the same investment flows. That would not strengthen Africa’s position. It would weaken it.” What is needed instead is “a common African commercial logic: shared market intelligence, disciplined quota monitoring, aligned engagement with Chinese institutions, and a continental view of where our competitive strengths truly lie.” She also called directly on China to “support us in financing the pre-feasibility studies needed to develop a pipeline of bankable projects needed to scale up local production” and to “facilitate access to critical technologies required to improve the productivity and competitiveness of African firms.”<\/p>\n
The second shift is from raw material dependence to value-added regional production. “The central weakness in Africa-China trade is not that Africa is absent from the relationship. It is that Africa is still positioned too low within it.” The task, as she framed it, is to change the composition of trade, not merely its scale. “We must move with intention into processing, beneficiation, agro-processing and light manufacturing. We must retain more value before export.” And no single economy, she stressed, will do this at scale on its own. “But regional production systems can. Corridor-based value chains can. The AfCFTA can.” The answer, she said, is “not a collection of isolated national export plans, but a continental production strategy in which countries specialise, complement one another, and build a common African offer with real industrial depth.”<\/p>\n
The third shift is from tariff access alone to what she called full-spectrum trade enablement. “The real barriers now are not only at the border. They lie in standards, certification, traceability, logistics, working capital, regulatory approval and institutional readiness. Market access on paper is not the same as market access in practice.” A zero tariff, she noted, “does not move a shipment through a weak corridor. It does not certify a facility. It does not finance an SME. It does not satisfy SPS requirements. It does not secure GACC registration. And it does not build trust with buyers who need quality, consistency and reliability.” The next frontier, she argued, is implementation – “quality infrastructure, accredited laboratories, inspection systems, facility registration, export readiness, trade finance and real-time market information.”<\/p>\n
The institutional question<\/p>\n
Running through the address was a broader argument about AUDA-NEPAD’s role in this moment. Bekele-Thomas was clear that the agency sees this as a moment demanding active engagement. “As the African Union’s premier development agency, our role is not to observe this moment from the sidelines. Our role is to help the continent organise around it.” She described AUDA-NEPAD as “the institution that can connect market access to productive readiness, productive readiness to regional value chains, value chains to infrastructure, and infrastructure to bankable investment.”<\/p>\n
The financing dimensions are significant. Under PIDA-PAP II, 69 flagship regional infrastructure projects carry a combined value of $160 billion, with an estimated annual financing need of around $16 billion. Separately, Afreximbank has estimated Africa’s annual trade finance gap at around $100 billion – a shortfall that falls disproportionately on SMEs. “Even where market demand exists,” she observed, “many African producers remain unable to seize it because they cannot finance inputs, inventory, certification, shipment or scale.”<\/p>\n
The larger question<\/p>\n
The central thread of Bekele-Thomas’s address was perhaps best captured in a distinction she drew near its close. Larger volumes flowing through an unchanged trade structure can look like progress. But if Africa continues to export primary commodities into a tariff-free Chinese market while importing finished goods in return, the margin of trade will have changed while its character has not. “We will simply move larger volumes through an old structure of dependency,” she warned, “and mistake that movement for progress.”<\/p>\n
“If Africa gets these three shifts right,” she argued, “then China’s tariff-free offer will not be remembered merely as a policy announcement or a trade concession. It will be remembered as a strategic inflection point – the moment Africa chose to organise itself differently, to produce more ambitiously, and to compete from a stronger place in the world.”<\/p>\n
She closed with a challenge as much as a conclusion: “The real question is not whether opportunity exists. The real question is whether Africa will now marshal the discipline, the alignment and the imagination to turn that opportunity into transformation. That is the challenge. That is the responsibility. And that is the work now before us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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