In Abuja on August 14, 2026, almost 500 authorities officers, diplomats, students, and enterprise representatives gathered for a seminar on China’s new zero-tariff coverage and what it means for African financial transformation. Nigeria’s minister of state for agriculture, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, used the event to strike a cautious observe. “Zero tariffs alone don’t assure success,” he advised the room. “The query earlier than us, subsequently, just isn’t, can Nigeria export extra? The query must be, can Nigeria export higher?”
Since Might 1, China has prolonged zero-tariff remedy throughout one hundred pc of tariff strains to the 53 African international locations with which it holds diplomatic relations. That provides almost all of Africa (with the lone exception of Eswatini) duty-free entry to one of many world’s largest client markets. The early outcomes look encouraging: Chinese language imports from Africa reached $28.7 billion in Might and June, up 23.5 % from a 12 months earlier. Throughout the seminar in Abuja, China’s ambassador to Nigeria reported that Chinese language imports from Nigeria particularly had already grown greater than 40 % year-on-year in each Might and June.
African governments have good cause to welcome China’s new zero-tariff coverage. The issue is that decrease tariffs alone can’t resolve the deeper imbalance that has constructed up in Africa-China commerce.
Africa-China merchandise commerce hit a report $348 billion in 2025, however the flows had been badly lopsided. China offered Africa $225 billion in items, Africa offered China $123 billion. For each greenback of products Africa offered China, it purchased again roughly $1.83. The ensuing deficit, $102 billion, was 64.5 % above 2024’s determine. In the identical interval, Chinese language exports to Africa grew 25.8 %, whereas African exports to China grew simply 5.4 %.
Market entry – like China’s new supply to African international locations – can change the amount of commerce, however not essentially the construction of commerce. What is definitely being exported by every companion issues greater than the dimensions of the deficit itself. Analysis from the Boston College International Improvement Coverage Middle and the African Financial Analysis Consortium discovered that from 2000 via 2022, 89 % of African exports to China got here from extractive industries: oil, copper, iron ore, alumina. Over the identical interval, 94 % of African imports from China had been manufactured items.
A 2026 replace from the identical researchers confirmed that not a lot had modified. Extracted pure sources nonetheless dominate Africa’s exports to China, whereas agriculture and manufacturing every account for a small share of export worth.
Most African international locations have clearly said ambitions to maneuver up the worth chain. Decrease tariffs alone will do little to perform that objective. The rising quantity of Africa-China commerce is straightforward to measure and simply as simple to have fun, however the total numbers are much less necessary than the composition of commerce.
The tariff opening nonetheless issues, after all. African exports of avocados, apples, and oranges to China have risen sharply since implementation. Market entry of this type can pull actual funding towards certification, cold-chain logistics, and packaging, a few of the obstacles holding producers again. However that received’t occur routinely.
Take copper for instance. Copper could be exported from Africa as uncooked ore, or it may be refined and labored into parts earlier than it ships. Presently, that work – and the added worth – occurs nearly totally outdoors the continent. China’s zero-tariff coverage doesn’t care whether or not the copper is uncooked or refined; the tariff line is identical both approach.
Two current examples present what better processing and worth seize inside Africa can truly appear like. At a processing plant in Kenya’s Athi River Export Processing Zone, regionally grown avocados are ripened, sorted, and cold-pressed into additional virgin avocado oil sure for China. In Rwanda, an organization that started exporting dried chilies to China in 2022 shipped its first batch of pickled chilies in June – a deliberate transfer towards a higher-value semi-processed product made solely after the tariff change. In each circumstances, extra processing is going on earlier than the products go away the continent, which implies extra of the worth is captured in Kenya and Rwanda relatively than downstream in China.
African international locations do have the potential to maneuver up the worth chain, and intra-Africa commerce proves it. UNCTAD reported that 61 % of commerce taking place inside the continent consists of processed and semi-processed items, far above Africa’s share of processed exports to the remainder of the world. The chance is to pair China’s exterior market with the regional worth chains the African Continental Free Commerce Space is supposed to construct. Cotton grown in Mali or Burkina Faso could be baled and shipped on to China for processing, or it will possibly transfer first via mills in Cote d’Ivoire or Ghana and go away as completed material.
It’s not tariffs which can be holding again African manufacturing. China’s zero-tariff coverage received’t remedy issues like unreliable electrical energy, costly financing, inefficient ports, skinny transport hyperlinks, certification bottlenecks, or customs delays. UNCTAD estimated that street transport alone accounts for about 29 % of the value of products traded inside Africa, in contrast with 7 % for items traded past it. In response to UNCTAD, non-tariff limitations constrain intra-African commerce roughly thrice greater than tariffs.
African governments have to deal with China’s opening as one enter into a bigger industrial coverage, not as an alternative to having one. Africa-China commerce will probably hold setting data, however that alone received’t assist African economies climb world worth chains. The true check will present up within the breakdown of these commerce statistics: whether or not Africa continues to be largely exporting uncooked supplies like crude oil and copper ore or refined metals and completed items.
