Africa must trade with itself to grow – Gabriel Edgal – Nsemkeka
Gabriel Edgal, IATF Ambassador and Chairman of Oakwood Green Africa, has urged Africa to take deliberate steps to increase intra-continental trade and shift from rhetoric to results, adding, Ghanaian businesses must participate in the upcoming Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF2025) to deepen commercial partnerships and unlock cross-border opportunities.
Mr. Edgal was addressing stakeholders at the IATF2025 Ghana Business Engagement Session held in Accra, part of a continent-wide series of roadshows ahead of the fair, which takes place in Algiers, Algeria, from September 4 to 10. The event is expected to bring together over 2,000 exhibitors, 35,000 visitors, and generate more than $44 billion in trade and investment deals.
Delivering the welcome address, Mr. Edgal emphasised that while Africa’s potential has long been acknowledged, the time had come to match that potential with action.
“Potential opens the door,” he noted. “But only solutions, products, and partnerships walk through it.”
He pointed to real progress already being made across the continent, citing examples like Rwanda’s growing dairy integration with Kenya, Senegal’s vaccine exports to Mali, and Zambia’s poultry trade with the Democratic Republic of Congo. These, he said, are only a few among many emerging examples of African businesses replacing global value chains with regional ones; a trend he described as both necessary and overdue.
But beyond highlighting existing successes, Mr. Edgal issued a direct call to Ghanaian buyers and sellers across industries to seize the opportunity IATF2025 presents.
“This is a marketplace created for us, by us. Ghanaian producers must go and showcase. Ghanaian buyers must go and explore. The solutions we seek may already exist across the border,” he stressed.
He also underscored Ghana’s strategic location as a transshipment hub for West, Central, and Southern Africa, calling on players in logistics, financial services, insurance, transport, agriculture, and the creative sectors to position themselves as enablers of regional trade.
Themed “Harnessing Regional and Continental Value Chains: Accelerating Africa’s Industrialisation and Global Competitiveness under the AfCFTA,” the Business Engagement Session brought together high-level representatives from the AfCFTA Secretariat, Afreximbank, the Ghana Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Ghana Export Promotion Authority, the Ghana Chamber of Commerce, the Association of Ghana Industries, and business leaders including Volkswagen Ghana.
Participants were introduced to various trade facilitation tools championed by Afreximbank, including the Mansa due diligence platform, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), and the Africa Trade Gateway , all designed to ease transactions, increase transparency, and connect businesses to financing, markets, and opportunities across the continent.
Mr. Edgal noted that Oakwood Green Africa, which serves as a strategic partner to Afreximbank, is supporting businesses across the region to access these instruments, and encouraged SMEs and large corporations alike to take advantage.
IATF2025, hosted by Afreximbank in collaboration with the African Union and the AfCFTA Secretariat, is positioned as Africa’s largest trade and investment event, offering a continental platform for businesses to form strategic partnerships, diversify markets, and drive industrialization through intra-African value chains.