Africa's 54 Markets at a Glance

Mali and Burkina Faso remain heavily dependent on gold. Niger has important uranium and oil exports.

Senegal's offshore energy industry has developed in stages. The Sangomar field achieved first oil in June 2024. The Greater Tortue Ahmeyim gas project, shared with Mauritania, began its LNG export phase in 2025.

Several smaller coastal economies also draw much of their economic importance from their ports. Togo and Benin, for example, serve as entry points for goods moving towards landlocked neighbouring countries and the wider regional market.

West Africa also has several different regional arrangements.

The West African CFA franc is used by eight countries and is linked to the euro. Other countries use national currencies, including the naira, cedi, dalasi and leone.

The region's trading system is not limited to formal customs arrangements. Cross-border trade along routes such as the Abidjan-Lagos corridor connects Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria and supports large volumes of both formal and informal commerce.

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are no longer ECOWAS members. Their withdrawal took effect in January 2025. They are instead linked politically through the Alliance of Sahel States, or AES, and the table below shows them that way.

West Africa by country

Central Africa

Central Africa contains nine countries and has the smallest combined share of Africa's GDP, at about 8%.

It is nevertheless one of the continent's most resource-rich regions. The region includes major deposits of copper, cobalt, oil, manganese, gold and other minerals, as well as much of the Congo Basin rainforest.

The Democratic Republic of Congo dominates the region economically, accounting for roughly 44% of its GDP.

The DRC is one of the world's leading producers of cobalt and a major producer of copper. Much of the country's mineral production comes from the southeast, where transport routes connect mines to ports and international markets. The Lobito Corridor has become an important route for copper and cobalt exports towards Angola's Atlantic coast.

Cameroon has one of the region's more diversified economies, with oil, timber, cocoa, coffee, bananas and cotton among its important exports. The port of Douala also serves as an important gateway for landlocked Chad and the Central African Republic.

Gabon, the Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea remain heavily dependent on hydrocarbons. This gives some of them relatively high GDP per person while also leaving their economies exposed to changes in oil production and prices.

Equatorial Guinea is projected to contract in 2026 as declining oil production continues to weigh on the economy.

Gabon is also a major manganese producer and has developed more timber processing after restrictions on exports of unprocessed logs.

Six of the nine countries use the Central African CFA franc through CEMAC. The DRC, Burundi and São Tomé and Príncipe use their own currencies.

Regional trade remains relatively limited, while long transport distances, infrastructure gaps and security conditions can make cross-border commerce difficult.

Central Africa by country

East Africa and the islands

East Africa and the Indian Ocean islands account for about 16% of Africa's combined GDP in this grouping.

The region includes several of the continent's faster-growing economies. The IMF projects Ethiopia to grow by 9.2% in 2026, Uganda by 7.5%, Rwanda by 7.2% and Tanzania by 5.9%.

Kenya is the largest economy in the region at about US$147 billion, followed by Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda.

Ports are central to the region's trade.

Mombasa and Dar es Salaam serve large hinterlands stretching into landlocked countries around the Great Lakes. The Northern and Central Corridors connect countries including Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and the eastern DRC to the coast.

Djibouti plays a particularly important role for Ethiopia, whose foreign trade relies heavily on the port and transport connections linking the two countries.

The East African Community has also created a framework for regional integration, including a customs union and common-market arrangements. Kenya's banks, telecoms companies, retailers and other businesses have expanded into neighbouring markets.

Agriculture and minerals dominate many export baskets.

Kenya is a major exporter of black tea and cut flowers and also exports coffee, fruit and vegetables. Ethiopia is Africa's largest coffee producer. Uganda is a major coffee exporter, while Tanzania and Uganda are significant gold exporters.

Madagascar is the world's largest producer and exporter of natural vanilla. Its export share is particularly large even though its share of global production is considerably lower than some commonly repeated online claims suggest.

The Indian Ocean islands have different economic structures. Mauritius and Seychelles have the highest GDP per person in Africa in the IMF figures used here, with tourism, financial services and other service industries playing major roles. Mauritius also has manufacturing and sugar, while Seychelles has a large tuna-processing and fishing industry.

Sudan presents a very different picture. The war that began in April 2023 has severely damaged the country's economy.

South Sudan remains heavily dependent on oil, much of which has historically moved through a pipeline across Sudan to reach export markets.

There have also been recent changes to regional memberships. Rwanda withdrew from ECCAS in June 2025 and remains a member of the East African Community and COMESA. Sudan resumed full participation in IGAD in February 2026, while Eritrea formally withdrew from IGAD in December 2025.

East Africa and the islands by country

Eritrea's figures are UN-based 2023 data, not IMF 2026 projections. Eritrea withdrew from IGAD in December 2025.

Southern Africa

Southern Africa contains ten countries and accounts for about 23% of Africa's combined GDP.

South Africa accounts for nearly 59% of the region's output and remains the continent's largest economy.

Its economy is considerably more diversified than many commodity-dependent African economies. It has large financial, manufacturing, mining, agricultural and services sectors, including automotive manufacturing, chemicals, machinery and processed food.

Growth, however, is projected at only about 1% in 2026.

The rest of Southern Africa contains several major mineral economies.

Botswana has long depended heavily on diamonds. Zambia's export economy is strongly linked to copper. Zimbabwe exports gold, tobacco, platinum-group metals and lithium, while Namibia has major uranium and diamond exports.

Angola is the region's second-largest economy and one of Africa's major oil producers.

Mozambique has substantial coal, aluminium and natural gas operations. Its northern gas development has been affected by the insurgency in Cabo Delgado, while political unrest following the 2024 election has also affected economic activity.

Southern Africa has unusually dense economic links between neighbouring countries.

The Southern African Customs Union, or SACU, links South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini in a customs union. South African goods also move extensively through the region by road and rail.

The Common Monetary Area links South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia and Eswatini, with the South African rand playing an important monetary role in the smaller economies.

Ports including Durban, Walvis Bay and Maputo provide routes to the sea for landlocked economies. The Lobito Corridor also provides a route from the copper and cobalt-producing areas of the DRC and Zambia towards Angola's Atlantic coast.

Southern Africa by country

Patterns across the continent

Looking at the 54 economies together makes several patterns easier to see.

Commodity dependence remains widespread

Oil and gas, gold, copper, cocoa, diamonds, cotton and coffee appear repeatedly in African export baskets.

UN Trade and Development's State of Commodity Dependence 2025 defines an economy as commodity-dependent when commodities account for more than 60% of merchandise exports. Its analysis found that 46 of Africa's 54 countries were commodity-dependent during 2021 to 2023.

The eight African economies classified as non-commodity-dependent in that dataset were Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Djibouti, Comoros, Mauritius, Eswatini and Lesotho.

This does not mean that every other economy exports only raw materials, or that commodity-dependent countries have no manufacturing or services sectors. It means that commodities remain dominant in their merchandise exports.

That distinction is useful when comparing markets. A country can have a sophisticated services sector while still relying heavily on one or two commodities for export earnings.

Size, income and growth tell different stories

The largest economy is not necessarily the richest per person, and the richest economy per person is not necessarily among the largest.

South Africa is Africa's largest economy in the IMF's 2026 projections but has one of the lowest projected growth rates among the larger economies.

Ethiopia is projected to grow by 9.2%, but its GDP per person remains relatively low.

Seychelles has the highest GDP per person in the dataset while having one of the continent's smallest economies in absolute terms.

For a business, those differences can lead to very different questions.

A company selling a mass-market consumer product may care heavily about population and total purchasing power. A financial services company may care more about income, regulation and the presence of regional headquarters. A manufacturer may care about ports, electricity, industrial suppliers and access to neighbouring markets.

GDP alone cannot answer those questions.

Geography changes the cost of trade

Sixteen African countries have no coastline:

Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Their international trade depends on neighbouring countries' ports, roads, railways and border procedures.

That makes transport infrastructure and regional corridors especially important.

A landlocked company does not only need to understand its own country's customs rules. It also needs to understand the route its goods take through other countries.

The reverse is also true for coastal economies.

Ports in countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Djibouti, Togo and South Africa serve markets beyond their own borders. Their importance comes partly from the economies behind them.

Some smaller economies have regional importance beyond GDP

A country's domestic economy can be small while its role in regional business is much larger.

Mauritius has developed financial and investment services connected to African markets.

Rwanda has positioned Kigali as a location for conferences, regional organisations and business operations.

Kenya, Morocco, South Africa and Nigeria are home to companies that have expanded across neighbouring markets in sectors including banking, telecommunications, retail and consumer goods.

For an international company deciding where to set up its first African operation, market size is therefore only one consideration. Regulation, transport connections, regional market access, business networks and the ability to reach customers in neighbouring countries can all influence the decision.

How the series is ordered

The country profiles will not run in alphabetical order.

The opening set lays out the framework for understanding African economies and regional trade. The country profiles then move through the markets Ria's Colony is prioritising, followed by the remaining countries region by region.

The aim is to make the countries easier to understand individually while also showing how their markets connect to one another.

Two additional strands will run alongside the country profiles.

Follow the Product

These posts will trace individual products across borders, showing where they are grown or extracted, how they are processed, where they move and which markets depend on them.

Planned subjects include cocoa, coffee, cashews, gold, cobalt and cut flowers. About eight posts are planned.

Corridors

These posts will follow the routes that connect African markets.

Potential subjects include the Abidjan-Lagos corridor, the Northern Corridor, the Central Corridor and the Lobito Corridor. About five posts are planned.

Together, that makes 62 core posts, plus roughly 13 product and corridor posts, for about 75 posts across the wider series.

Each country profile will use the same basic structure: an economic snapshot, what the country sells and buys, its major trading partners inside and outside Africa, its regional economic communities and AfCFTA position, how goods move through its ports and borders, sectors with growth potential, the practical realities of doing business there, major risks and a fact box of key figures.

The first country profile in the series is Nigeria.