Despite the rapid growth of Asian import demand, African firms remain strikingly under-represented in Asian markets: the continent supplies less than 2% of Asia’s total merchandise imports and only 5% of its agro-processing and light-manufacturing needs. This paper identifies and quantifies the market barriers that suppress Africa-to-Asia trade.

Data and methodology:

Combining a novel transaction-level dataset covering 2008–2022, firm-level surveys in six African countries, and in-depth interviews with Asian importers, we decompose the gap between potential and actual exports into four categories of frictions:

Tariff and non-tariff measures, including opaque SPS rules and rules-of-origin provisions;

Trade-finance constraints, driven by the high-risk premiums African banks face in Asian markets;

Logistics and connectivity gaps, especially the scarcity of direct liner services and reliable cold-chain infrastructure; and

Information asymmetries that limit African firms’ awareness of Asian product standards and buyer preferences.

Gravity model results:

A structural gravity model that incorporates these barriers shows that eliminating the most binding constraints—particularly SPS compliance costs and trade-finance spreads—could raise African manufactured exports to Asia by 38% and agricultural exports by 54% within five years.

Conclusion and policy agenda:

The paper concludes with a sequenced policy agenda that targets the highest-return interventions at both the regional (AfCFTA–Asian trade facilitation agreements) and national (export-credit guarantee schemes, accredited laboratory networks) levels.