#continentaltrade

what the AfCFTA is: the most ambitious trade integration project in africa's history. signed by 54 of 55 AU member states. 1.4 billion people. combined GDP approximately $3.4 trillion. the world bank estimates full implementation could lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty by 2035.

the infrastructure problem: the AfCFTA's economic promise depends on a condition the trade agreement cannot provide — physical infrastructure that allows goods to move between african markets efficiently, cheaply, and reliably. a tariff reduction to zero percent is meaningless if the only way to move goods between zambia and angola is by road at a cost that makes trade economically unviable. the AfCFTA creates the legal architecture. the lobito corridor creates the physical infrastructure.

what the corridor enables: when the zambian section is complete, a manufacturer in lusaka will have access to a rail connection to the port of lobito at a transit time and cost that makes export viable for products that current transport economics exclude — a soybean processor in kabwe, a copper fabricator in kitwe, a pharmaceutical manufacturer in the lusaka south MFEZ.

the first shipment that mattered: in august 2024, the first copper shipment from the lobito corridor reached the united states — lobito to baltimore — six days after dispatch from kolwezi. the copperbelt has, for the first time in history, a direct, functioning connection to the atlantic.

the AfCFTA secretariat has identified the lobito corridor as one of the key physical enablers of continental free trade — a natural test case for cross-border trade facilitation across three AfCFTA member states.

the rail route is not complete. the DRC bottleneck remains. the zambian section has not yet broken ground. but the direction of travel is unmistakable: the lobito corridor and the AfCFTA are the infrastructure and the framework of the same continental economic transformation. the corridor without the framework is a mineral export route. the framework without the corridor is a legal aspiration. together, they are the architecture of a genuinely integrated african economy.