African business leaders are signalling growing confidence in the continent’s commercial future even as the financial and institutional barriers to doing business across borders remain stubbornly high.
New findings from the 2026 PAFTRAC Africa CEO Trade Survey show that 81.3 percent of senior executives expect their cross-border business activity to increase over the next 12 months, underscoring a strong private-sector appetite for deeper African trade.
Yet the optimism sits against a striking contradiction: intra-African merchandise trade remains broadly stuck at 15–18 percent of total African exports, despite the operational rollout of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The findings, drawn from more than 2,500 business leaders across the continent, suggest that Africa’s private sector may be ready to trade more with itself, but the infrastructure of finance, payments, policy implementation and market intelligence has yet to catch up with that ambition.
The survey, now in its sixth year, has expanded substantially from 400 respondents in 2021, making its latest edition one of the broadest assessments of African executive sentiment on trade.
Perhaps most significantly, intra-African commerce has emerged as the leading destination priority for surveyed executives, ahead of China, Europe and the United States.
That shift in business orientation could prove important for the continent’s economic integration agenda. But it also exposes the gap between the market Africa wants to build and the systems businesses currently have to navigate.
The cost of perceived risk
Finance remains one of the most immediate constraints.
According to the survey, 57 percent of executives consider access to trade finance for cross-border transactions difficult or very difficult. For smaller businesses, the challenge is even more consequential, with the International Finance Corporation estimating Africa’s SME financing gap at more than $331 billion.
PAFTRAC argues that the problem is not simply a shortage of capital, but the cost at which African risk is assessed.
Citing International Finance Corporation (IFC) analysis, the organisation estimates that African sovereign and institutional borrowers face an additional $31 billion a year in financing costs because of risk premiums associated with international credit assessments.
Patrick Utomi, a professor of political economy and the chairperson of PAFTRAC, described the issue as a “prejudice premium”, arguing that international risk assessments can fail to adequately reflect conditions on the ground.
“The core issue is risk perception,” Utomi said, arguing that global rules and rating methodologies can impose a direct cost on African economies and, ultimately, on trade.
The implications extend beyond governments.
Higher sovereign borrowing costs can feed through to domestic financial markets, increasing the cost of credit for banks and businesses and making cross-border transactions less competitive. For companies attempting to build regional supply chains, finance an export order or enter a new African market, the cost of capital can therefore become a trade barrier in its own right.
AfCFTA’s implementation test
The survey also points to a second problem: the gap between the existence of continental trade architecture and businesses’ ability to use it.
Some 70.2 percent of respondents said they had experienced a tangible operational impact from AfCFTA-related reforms. But awareness of several of the mechanisms intended to make the agreement work remains limited.
More than half of respondents, according to the preliminary findings, are unfamiliar with the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), which is designed to facilitate cross-border payments in African currencies and reduce reliance on traditional correspondent banking and dollar clearing arrangements.
Awareness is similarly limited around other AfCFTA implementation tools, including the E-Tariff Book, the African Trade Observatory and mechanisms for reporting non-tariff barriers.
That creates an important distinction between policy implementation and commercial adoption.
A trade agreement can remove tariffs on paper, but businesses still need to know where opportunities exist, understand the applicable rules, obtain financing, make payments efficiently and resolve regulatory or logistical obstacles.
Without those supporting systems, tariff liberalisation alone is unlikely to deliver the scale of intra-African commerce envisaged by policymakers.
Confidence meets capacity
The survey therefore presents a picture of an African private sector that is neither disengaged nor pessimistic about regional trade.
Quite the opposite. Executives appear increasingly willing to look beyond traditional external markets and build commercial relationships within Africa. The constraint is that the institutions supporting those ambitions remain unevenly understood and, in some cases, expensive to access.
That distinction matters. The next phase of AfCFTA implementation will be judged not only by the agreements governments sign or the policies they adopt, but by whether businesses can actually use the resulting systems at competitive cost.
For African companies, the test is ultimately practical: can an exporter in one African country find a buyer in another, secure affordable trade finance, navigate customs and regulatory requirements, receive payment efficiently and scale the relationship without prohibitive friction?
The PAFTRAC findings suggest there is already significant demand for that market.
What remains uncertain is whether Africa’s financial and policy architecture can move quickly enough to meet it.
The full 2026 PAFTRAC Africa CEO Trade Survey, expected later this month, is set to provide a broader assessment of the continent’s trade barriers, progress on AfCFTA implementation and financing constraints, alongside private-sector policy recommendations based on responses from more than 2,500 executives.
