Taiwo Hassan 
The Pan-African Manufacturers Association (PAMA) has disclosed in its April 2025 news bulletin that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement framework represents not just a trade pact but a strategic continental mechanism for reconfiguring Africa’s industrial development.
PAMA, which is the voice of manufacturers in Africa and also at the forefront of promoting Africa’s industrial transformation under the African Union’s Agenda 2063, revealed that realising AfCFTA’s full developmental dividend required far more than tariff reductions and market access, adding that it demands systemic transformation across infrastructure, industrial capacity, regulatory coherence, and enterprise competitiveness.
PAMA’s Interim President, Engr Mansur Ahmed, who made this known in the organisation’s news bulletin, said that PAMA, through its latest empirical assessment of AfCFTA on SMIs, presented compelling evidence on both the latent potential and structural vulnerabilities of African SMIs under the framework.
He stated that 96 per cent of SMIs indicated readiness to engage in intra-African trade, but infrastructure deficits, low production volumes, limited access to finance, and knowledge gaps on AfCFTA’s protocols continued to constrain effective participation.
Ahmed explained that without targeted interventions, especially in trade facilitation, export clustering, and regulatory awareness, the benefits of AfCFTA risked being under-realised.
Ahmed, the immediate past President of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), said that PAMA was established as a continental business membership organisation, noting it was a PanAfrican platform midwifed and recognised by the African Union Commission as the representative of manufacturers on the continent.
According to him, the core goal is to represent, protect, and promote the interests of all manufacturers in African countries through coherent advocacy and partnership with key strategic stakeholders and players in the manufacturing sector.
While speaking on PAMA’s recent webinar: “Boosting Africa’s Manufacturing Under AfCFTA”, he said: “Our recent continental webinar further expanded policy discourse on the subject, situating industrial growth within the triad of raw material intelligence, harmonised standards and integrated trade systems.
“Policy experts, including Prof. Nnanyelugo Ike-Muonso, Director-General of Raw Materials Research and Development Council, Nigeria, and Mrs. Ron Osman from the African Union Commission, Addis Ababa, at the webinar reiterated that Africa’s industrial progress must be anchored in endogenous inputs, supported by investment in technology absorption, and governed by standards aligned with continental frameworks like the Pan African Quality Infrastructure (PAQI).
“The insights around insecurity, logistics fragmentation, and asymmetric SME-market power dynamics highlight the urgency of coordinated action from both regional institutions and national governments.
As we prepare for the Intra-Africa Trade Fair in Algeria, these discussions must translate into actionable strategies that empower our manufacturers.”
