Afreximbank To Drive Fresh Trade Chain Financing In Africa

The Afreximbank and Africa Trading and Distribution Company, ATDC, are collaborating in fresh initiative to create more opportunities for African entrepreneurs by endorsing a $500 million credit facility agreement to support trading and distribution operations across Africa and in international markets. 

The ATDC is a pan-African trading and distribution platform.

The facility will finance activities across the trade chain, from the purchase and aggregation of goods to transportation, storage and distribution. The loans will be repaid from revenue generated by the sale of the financed products. ATDC will be able to source products from different suppliers, consolidate them into commercially viable volumes and distribute them to other markets.

The platform, which operates in Egypt, Nigeria, Malawi and Zimbabwe, also plans to develop trade corridors linking African markets. “Realising Africa’s full trade potential requires reliable systems that connect producers, processors, manufacturers and markets,” said Stewart Makura, ATDC’s chief executive officer.

The deal comes as limited access to financing continues to hold back intra-African trade. According to Afreximbank’s African Trade Report 2025, the continent faces an annual trade finance gap of about $100 billion, a constraint that limits small and medium-sized enterprises’ participation in regional value chains. 

Intra-African trade reached $220.3 billion in 2024, up 12.4 per cent from a year earlier, but still accounted for only 14.4 per cent of the continent’s formal trade, according to the same report.

For Afreximbank, the facility is intended to strengthen links between African producers, processors and markets while expanding companies’ access to trade finance. It comes as merchandise trade across the continent is growing.

African merchandise trade reached about $1.5 trillion in 2024, up 13.9 per cent from a year earlier. Exports rose 21 per cent to $758 billion, while imports increased 7.6 per cent to $769 billion.

Expanding access to trade finance will be important to sustaining that growth and increasing trade flows between African markets. 

The ATDC facility is part of Afreximbank’s broader trade finance strategy. 

The bank said it disbursed $17.5 billion in trade financing in 2024 and is targeting $40 billion in intra-African trade finance in 2026.