Afreximbank, ATDC Sign $500 Million Facility to Boost African Commodity Trade

The financing will provide ATDC with additional trade-finance capacity to purchase, aggregate and distribute African goods while covering critical logistics costs, including transportation, warehousing and distribution throughout the trade cycle. Under the arrangement, repayments will be anchored on proceeds generated from the sale of goods financed through the facility, creating a commercially sustainable model for expanding regional trade.

According to Kanayo Awani, Afreximbank’s Executive Vice President for Intra-African Trade and Export Development, the facility represents a strategic investment in the infrastructure needed to unlock the full potential of AfCFTA. She said improving the distribution of Made-in-Africa products would deepen regional value chains, expand market access for producers and increase the continent’s manufactured exports.

Beyond financing individual transactions, the agreement is expected to establish repeatable trade corridors and strengthen dependable sourcing and distribution networks across African markets. It will also support greater processing of African commodities, improve access to raw materials and industrial inputs, and encourage value addition rather than the export of unprocessed goods.

ATDC, a pan-African trading and distribution platform, was established to address long-standing gaps in market intelligence, logistics and commercial connectivity across the continent. The company currently operates in Egypt, Nigeria, Malawi and Zimbabwe, where it works to improve market access and strengthen regional supply chains for producers, manufacturers and processors.

Stewart Makura, Chief Executive Officer of ATDC, said reliable systems linking producers, processors, manufacturers and markets remain essential to Africa’s economic transformation. He noted that the new facility would strengthen the company’s ability to mobilize working capital, aggregate supply efficiently and move goods across regional value chains while supporting import substitution and stronger intra-African commerce.