In Brief
The African Continental Free Trade Area opens up the prospect of a market of more than 1.3 billion consumers. But this ambition does not depend solely on lower customs duties or harmonised trade rules. It also requires goods to move faster, further and at lower cost between the continent’s economies. In this equation, Africa’s ports occupy a strategic position, connecting African markets to global value chains and, increasingly, to one another.
Africa’s ports: the gateway to continental trade
For a large proportion of African economies, trade begins or ends at the port. Exported raw materials, imported manufactured goods, equipment for businesses or consumer products: a significant share of the goods that drive the continent’s economies passes through maritime routes before reaching its final market.
UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) highlights that maritime transport remains Africa’s primary gateway to the global market, even though a third of the continent’s countries have no coastline. In 2021, African ports loaded close to 7% of global maritime trade by volume and unloaded 5%, illustrating their role in the continent’s exchanges with the rest of the world.
This importance is also reflected in containerised traffic, which accounts for a large share of manufactured goods trade. African ports represented, again according to UNCTAD, around 4% of global containerised traffic in 2020. This share may seem modest on a global scale, but it covers flows that are essential to the functioning of national and regional economies.
The role of ports therefore goes beyond their capacity to receive and process vessels. Their performance also determines how goods subsequently reach cities, industrial zones, agricultural basins and inland markets. For governments and businesses alike, having infrastructure capable of handling volumes, reducing lead times and facilitating port exits is a direct factor of competitiveness.
From port to hub: the rise of container shipping
As trade flows intensify, certain ports take on a function that goes well beyond that of a simple entry or exit point. They become concentration points for flows, capable of receiving large vessels, rapidly processing significant volumes and then redistributing goods to multiple destinations. This is the function that characterises a port hub.
To fulfil this role, an infrastructure must meet several conditions: water depth suited to deep-draught vessels, high-performance equipment, sufficient storage capacity, dense maritime connectivity and logistics services capable of ensuring redistribution to secondary ports or land corridors.
This evolution accompanies the transformation of global maritime transport. Containerisation and the arrival of ever-larger container vessels have pushed shipping lines to concentrate their calls at a smaller number of platforms capable of receiving these ships. Containers unloaded from a large vessel can then be transferred to smaller ships feeders to serve secondary ports.
This logic explains the growing prominence of platforms such as Lomé, whose depth of 16.60 metres allows it to receive large container vessels and strengthen its role as a hub in West Africa. In Abidjan, the port handled 1.69 million TEUs in 2025 and recorded a 34.1% increase in transit traffic to the hinterland.
Further north, Tanger Med illustrates another dimension of the model. The Moroccan complex has four container terminals, a capacity of 9 million TEUs and a depth of 18 metres. It handled 11,106,164 TEUs in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 8.4%. On the eastern side of the continent, the Doraleh terminal in Djibouti combines a gateway function towards Ethiopia with transshipment activity in the Red Sea, with a capacity of 1.8 million TEUs and quays offering depths of between 18 and 20 metres.
Ports as drivers of continental integration
This redistribution capacity takes on particular importance as African economies seek to increase trade among themselves. The AfCFTA does not in itself create the infrastructure needed for goods to circulate. Its ambition requires that the various markets can actually be connected by reliable, competitive and sufficiently coordinated transport chains.
In this perspective, Africa’s ports play an articulation role. They connect the continent to the major global trade routes, but can also support regional flows between African markets. Their function is therefore no longer limited to importing manufactured goods or exporting raw materials. It extends to the circulation of agricultural, industrial or processed goods from one African country to another.
For this ambition to become reality, ports must however be connected to efficient land networks. The success of intra-African trade depends as much on port infrastructure as on roads, rail, customs procedures, storage capacity and coordination between the various actors in the logistics chain.
The key role of Africa’s ports for landlocked countries
This challenge is particularly important for landlocked countries. For them, the coastal port is often the first link in a longer chain that must then enable goods to reach capitals, industrial zones, agricultural basins or consumer markets.
Corridors such as Cotonou-Niamey, Lomé-Ouagadougou, Abidjan-Ouagadougou or Djibouti-Addis Ababa illustrate this gateway function to the hinterland. They are not simply land extensions of ports, but strategic axes on which several economies depend for access to international and regional trade.
In this logic, a high-performing port is not measured solely by the speed at which it processes vessels. It must also enable rapid cargo clearance, good coordination with carriers, smooth customs procedures and adequate storage capacity. For landlocked countries, every delay at the port or along the corridor can push up costs, extend lead times and reduce the competitiveness of businesses.
The challenges facing Africa’s ports
This growing prominence brings new challenges. When volumes grow faster than processing capacity, tensions can manifest as waiting times at anchor, congestion on terminals or queues of trucks at their gates. AGL underlines that volume growth creates capacity pressures that cannot be resolved at the port alone, but across the entire logistics ecosystem: customs, road transport, warehouses and information flows.
Congestion can have several causes. It can stem from a terminal reaching saturation, as in Tema, where monthly volume records led to waiting times at anchor. It can also arise from customs procedures, as in Freetown, where the systematic physical inspection of containers and truck circulation constraints create a bottleneck at the terminal exit.
The deficit of land infrastructure is another critical point. A port may have modern quays and high-performance equipment, but lose part of its efficiency if the roads, rail, warehouses or truck parking areas cannot keep up. Port performance therefore depends increasingly on the quality of the link between the terminal and its hinterland.
Governance and digitalisation are also becoming decisive. Real-time data sharing between port authorities, customs, importers, carriers and terminals can contribute to better organising container movements and reducing dwell times.
Investment and modernisation of Africa’s ports
Faced with this pressure, port investment is multiplying. It responds to a dual necessity: increasing available capacity and adapting infrastructure to the evolution of vessels, volumes and corridors.
Modernisation takes several forms. It can involve new quays, the extension of container yards, the acquisition of gantry cranes, the digitalisation of operations or the creation of new port platforms. In Senegal, the future port of Ndayane represents an investment of 1.2 billion dollars, with a first phase comprising 840 metres of quay, a 5 km maritime channel and an expected capacity of 1.2 million TEUs per year. In Nigeria, Lekki illustrates the use of public-private partnerships to develop deepwater infrastructure.
This dynamic also concerns existing ports. Extensions or modernisation projects are underway or planned at Kribi, Tema, Congo Terminal, Benin Terminal and Conakry Terminal, with capacity targets, new quays or new equipment.
Public-private partnerships and concessions play an important role here. In the most common model, the State retains ownership of the infrastructure, while operations or development are entrusted to an operator for a defined period. This concession model differs from outright privatisation, while enabling the mobilisation of lenders, commercial banks and private operators.
The challenge is therefore not only to build more, but to develop capacities adapted to markets, corridors and expected flow growth. In a sector where vessels are growing in size and transshipment is gaining in importance, ports must anticipate rather than chase demand.
The role of an integrated logistics operator
In this environment, the ability to coordinate the various links of the chain is becoming a competitive factor. An operator present in ports, terminals and corridors can contribute to smoothing flows from the unloading of goods through to their delivery to inland markets.
Its role is not limited to port handling. It can also cover storage, the organisation of land flows, connection with road or rail networks, support for documentary and customs procedures, and the digital tracking of goods. The objective is to reduce the breaks between operations that are often handled separately, but which all participate in the same logistics chain.
It is in this logic that AGL has developed its network across the continent. The group is present in 51 countries, including 47 in Africa, has close to 25,000 employees and manages 24 port concessions. It also has a network of 120 subsidiaries and plans around 800 million euros of investment in 2026 in the development of its assets, including infrastructure, equipment and information systems.
This presence across multiple links makes it possible to approach port challenges at the scale of complete transport chains. In a continent where performance depends as much on the quay as on the corridor, the truck, the warehouse, customs or the information system, logistics integration becomes an important lever for connecting maritime facades to inland markets.
Conclusion
Africa’s ports are called upon to go beyond their traditional role as maritime gateways. With rising volumes, the growing prominence of transshipment hubs, the arrival of large vessels and the development of corridors, they are becoming articulation points between global trade, regional markets and continental integration.
This evolution will be decisive in giving concrete expression to the ambitions of the AfCFTA. A more integrated African market does not depend solely on trade texts. It also depends on the ability of ports, roads, rail, customs, warehouses and operators to move goods in a more fluid and predictable way.
For AGL, the response lies in an integrated approach, connecting port infrastructure, terminals and logistics corridors. The objective is to better connect African markets with each other, while strengthening their access to global trade.