A Senior Advisor to the Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Cynthia E. Gnassingbé-Essonam, has highlighted the financial constraints faced by many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in engaging in cross-border trade across Africa.

Speaking during a webinar organised by LIMA Partners on the theme “Unlocking Opportunities Across Africa: Harnessing AfCFTA for Business Growth,” held on Friday, April 25, 2025, Gnassingbé-Essonam emphasised that although AfCFTA presents numerous opportunities for business expansion, many SMEs remain unable to take full advantage due to inadequate financial and logistical support.

“We have also started pushing for the AfCFTA trading companies, and this is because, from the guiding trading experience, we realise that transport and logistics are very important challenges on the continent. Most of our businesses, sometimes, do not have the financial muscles to ship their products,” she stated.

To address these challenges, AfCFTA is advocating for the establishment of trading companies to aggregate and provide critical support to SMEs.

These companies are expected to offer services such as warehousing, financial backing, and collateral management to facilitate the marketing of SME products across African borders.

“So, we have now started pushing for the trading companies to aggregate support for SMEs that want to trade across borders. This will ensure that those companies are properly established to support SMEs in terms of marketing their products in a different market. This will include warehouse, financial, collateral management services, and others,” she stated.

So far, nine AfCFTA trading companies have been established in Ghana, Rwanda, Egypt, Chad, South Africa, The Gambia, and Kenya.

According to Gnassingbé-Essonam, the presence of these trading companies is already yielding results.

“What we have started noticing is that because we have established the trading companies, people are now connecting various markets, and there is an increase in AfCFTA trade from informal traders etc.” she added.