Preliminary results from the 2026 PAFTRAC Africa CEO Trade Survey – presented at the WTO Public Forum in Geneva – reveals that 81,3% of senior executives expect their cross-border activity to expand over the next 12 months.
Intra-African commerce has overtaken China, Europe, and the US as executives’ principal target destination. However, intra-African merchandise trade remains stalled at 15% to 18% of total exports, showing negligible change despite the operational rollout of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The survey, now in its sixth year and expanded from 400 respondents in 2021 to over 2 500 in 2026, is the most robust barometer of African executive sentiment on trade available. Its findings point to a continent where the appetite for regional integration is outpacing the systems designed to enable it.
A $31bn penalty on African trade
At the centre of that structural gap sits a financing barrier that goes beyond access to capital. African sovereign and institutional borrowers consistently attract risk ratings from Western credit agencies that, according to IFC analysis, impose an estimated excess premium of $31-billion annually.
“The core issue is risk perception – or what many of us call a prejudice premium,” says Professor Patrick Utomi, chairperson of PAFTRAC. “When capital is priced so that an economy actively at war receives more competitive financing than a stable, peaceful African sovereign, the system is misreading reality. Outdated global rules and subjective rating methodologies are imposing a direct tax on African trade.”
The consequences are dire. A total of 57% of the executives surveyed described access to trade finance for cross-border transactions as difficult or very difficult. The IFC estimates Africa’s SME financing gap at more than $331-billion.
Implementation is the bottleneck
The survey’s findings on the AfCFTA reveal a sharp divide between commercial goodwill and operational reality. While 70,2% of respondents report a tangible operational impact from AfCFTA-related reforms, awareness of the agreement’s practical execution mechanisms remains critically low.
More than half of respondents are unfamiliar with the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), a framework designed to bypass the friction of dollar clearing in intra-African transactions. Knowledge of the E-Tariff Book, the African Trade Observatory, and the AfCFTA’s non-tariff barrier reporting tools is similarly limited.