Trans-border Trade In Central Africa: Is The Regional Community The Only Solution?

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Trans-border Trade In Central Africa: Is The Regional Community The Only Solution?

23 juin 2025 13:25

The Central African Region is one of the economic blocs of the continent with the lowest volume of trans-border trade. The 11 member countries that make up the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) are yet to completely uplift trade barriers. Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo, Chad, Central African Republic and Cameroon as members of the regional economic community are still feet dragging in boosting intra-regional trade among member countries. ECCAS is said to have the lowest share of intra-regional trade in terms of Gross Domestic Product among the Africa’s economic blocs. Statistically, only 46 per cent of ECCAS’s continental trade remains within the region, indicating a need for improvement. One of the key reasons for the low intra-trade within the region is that member countries have reduced only 34 per cent of tariff lines to zero, hindering trade growth. With this timid level of intra-community trade, tongues are waging if the solution of trans-border trade could only be at the level of the economic bloc. Pundits believe that the challenges could be surmounted especially in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which ECCAS member countries are signatories. The AfCFTA agreement should serve as a booster to not only regional trade but continental trade as a whole. In this case, regional economic barriers should be transcended using the continental instruments. The pulling out of Rwanda from ECCAS last June 7, 2025 for what the Rwandan government describes as the “instrumentalisation” by the DR Congo is a sign that the country does not really rely on the economic bloc for its trade. This is not the first time Rwanda has pulled out as it did so again in 2007 to focus on its East Af...