The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has been called to shift from its initial focus on tariff reductions toward coordinated industrial policy and the building of regional value chains, according to Dr.Rob Davies, South Africa’s former minister of trade and industry.
Dr. Davies, who was in government when the AfCFTA was negotiated and now serves on the secretariat’s advisory council, said the agreement’s next phase will be defined by whether African countries can use the single market to raise value-added production, diversify economies and reduce dependence on raw commodity exports.
“The implementation requires a lot more strategic thinking,” Dr.Davies said in an interview on the AfCFTA Podcast. “The challenge now is for the AfCFTA to become an implementing tool that is able to support a higher level of value-added production.”
The AfCFTA aims to create a single market of about 1.5 billion people with combined GDP of roughly $3 trillion. Davies said that scale offers African economies a rare opportunity to industrialise in a more inclusive way, by distributing production across countries rather than concentrating manufacturing in a few.
He argued that the export-led model used by China and East Asian economies has become far harder for African countries to replicate, as global trade becomes more fragmented and developed nations increasingly pursue unilateral policies.
“That path has now become strewn with so many obstacles,” he said. “Our only real opportunity now does lie in the African market.”
Dr. Davies described the implementation picture among member states as uneven, citing examples such as Ethiopia’s industrial push and the spread of special economic zones across the continent. Still, he said these efforts remain too limited to shift Africa’s overall economic structure.
“We are still by and large producers and exporters of raw materials used in industrial processes outside of the continent,” he said.
The former minister urged member states to prioritise coordination and cooperation rather than expecting direction from the African Union or the AfCFTA Secretariat.
“It probably wouldn’t work” for a central authority to dictate industrial roles to countries, he said, arguing that cooperation on shared industrial goals would deliver more sustainable results.
He pointed to the automotive sector as an example where Africa can build value chains without each country attempting to establish a full vehicle assembly industry. Instead, he said, more countries can participate through component manufacturing and aftermarket production.
According to him, global conditions have increased the urgency for African regional integration, particularly as traditional trade rules weaken and large economies discard the multilateral frameworks they once promoted.
He called for Africa to use the AfCFTA not only to increase trade within the continent, but also to shape common positions in future global negotiations.
“It’s a new era for the AfCFTA,” Davies said, “an era in which the name of the game is now actually building regional value chains.”
