The final question may be the most important because AfCFTA implementation is not the responsibility of a single institution. A cross-border textile shipment may interact with customs authorities, standards agencies, ministries of trade, ports, border agencies, transport providers, financial institutions…
Digitalisation offers one of the strongest opportunities to reduce trade friction across Africa, but only if it is used to redesign processes rather than simply reproduce existing bureaucracy in electronic form. Uploading a paper form to a digital platform does…
If customs inefficiencies represent one source of friction, non-tariff barriers represent another. Tariffs are relatively easy to identify and quantify. Non-tariff barriers can be embedded within the regulatory systems through which businesses must operate; licensing requirements, technical standards, certification procedures,…
The first test of AfCFTA happens at the border. A trade agreement may establish preferential access between African economies, but businesses experience that agreement through customs procedures, documentation requirements, inspections, clearance times, and the predictability of moving goods from one…
Wednesday, September 09, 2026 Introduction For an apparel manufacturer, completing production is only one part of fulfilling an order. Once garments leave the factory, they still have to move through a chain of transport, documentation, customs clearance, border controls, warehousing,…
Friday, September 4, 2026 Introduction The African Continental Free Trade Area has changed the ambition of African economic integration. By creating a framework for reducing tariffs and establishing preferential access across a continental market, AfCFTA offers African manufacturers an opportunity…
For Africa’s textile and apparel industry, preferential access to international markets has long been viewed as an important pathway to export growth. But market access, by itself, does not guarantee industrial development. As Africa looks towards AGOA 2028, an important…
Trade preferences are often evaluated through export figures. While these are important indicators, they do not tell the entire industrial story. For the CTA sector, a more productive measurement criterion is: What productive capacity has been created because of preferential…
Preferential market access is often discussed as though it automatically translates into export opportunity. In practice, the process is considerably more demanding. A company does not become export-ready simply because its country is eligible for AGOA. Eligibility operates at multiple…
AGOA has played an important role in supporting African apparel exports to the United States. Its significance for the sector has historically extended beyond tariffs because the programme’s apparel provisions have helped make African production commercially viable within global sourcing…