The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, a 21-member trade bloc, launched a digital payments system in a bid to cut transaction costs.
The move by COMESA, which covers nearly two-thirds of Africa’s territory, is part of a broader push to roll out local currency payment systems to reduce dependence on the dollar in regional trade. The new platform is launching with trials between Malawi and Zambia, COMESA said.
Boosting intra-African trade is widely seen as a key facet of strengthening economic development across the continent. The African Continental Free Trade Area, which became the world’s largest free trade area in 2018, helped to push the value of intra-African transactions to $81 billion in 2023 from $69 billion in 2019. But cross-border deals still only accounted for “a paltry 14.4%” of Africa’s formal trade in 2024, Afreximbank said in a recent report.