Africa Trade Engine (ATE), a pioneering joint venture between TRT Manufacturing and TradeDepot, had its official launch yesterday. A major advance in building Africa’s industrial and trade self-sufficiency, transforming talk into a practical approach to drive inter-African trade, as envisioned by the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement (AfCFTA).
ATE is designed as a private-sector engine for AfCFTA with a mission to drive trade and job creation, enabling global and African brands to not only drive local African production but to also open African markets faster and more reliably with a data driven approach enabling higher success rates.
Turning Trade Theory into Trade at Work
“The talking is over. Africa Trade Engine ensures Africa’s industrialisation, intra-continental trade, and sustainable job creation are not future aspirations but operational realities,” announced Adam Molai, Chairman of ATE. “Built by African hands and powered by African enterprise, ATE transforms trade theory into trade at work, proving that Africa can manufacture competitively, distribute efficiently, and grow inclusively.”
The ATE trade system combines TRT Manufacturing’s industrial expertise in product formulation, manufacturing, quality assurance, export packaging, and plant operations with TradeDepot’s digital distribution infrastructure, market access, and trade data analytics.
Together, they unlock a continent-wide manufacturing and logistics ecosystem linking regional production hubs from South Africa to Benin, as well as providing active distribution points in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.
Reshaping Africa’s Economic and Climate Future
Kachi Izukanne, co-founder of TradeDepot and CEO of ATE, commented at the launch that “We are creating supply chain resilience with regionalised production networks ensuring continuity during global disruptions,” says Izukanne.
The ATE model also adds significant impetus to AfCFTA, where 54 signatories, 1.4 billion people, and a US$3.4 trillion GDP market open the door to immense opportunities and sustained growth within the African continent.
By localizing the production of essential FMCG products, including household and personal care goods, ATE addresses an estimated US $50 billion annual import gap while unlocking new intra-African trade corridors. ATE’s distributed manufacturing and pack-out nodes were conceived as a direct response to the COVID-19 supply chain crisis, ensuring Africa never stalls again. Local production also cuts long-haul transport emissions and supports national decarbonisation targets.
“Every kilometre of reduced shipping is a tangible carbon win. Each facility means livelihoods retained, families stabilised, and skills transferred locally. Manufacturing at home is migration policy in action — dignity and employment anchored in local economies” says Izukanne.
A New Benchmark for African Trade
ATE’s model will also deliver measurable and immediate impact across the data and tech fronts through:
- A Localisation Africa Index – A new benchmark for tracking and rewarding brands that localise manufacturing and sourcing.
- Data-Driven Competitiveness – Shared trade data, sector insights, and case studies drive smarter business and policy decisions.
- Partnership Power – Collaboration between industrial and digital leaders creates scalable, sustainable growth.
“The Localisation Index will be an accountability framework monitoring how multinational and local brands localise manufacturing, sourcing, and distribution. This will serve as a new ESG metric, offering investors and governments a transparent lens into who is truly ‘Made in Africa’ ” explains Izukanne.
By pairing factory floors with a trade operating system, ATE is creating a connected ecosystem that ensures the goods Africa produces can move quickly, affordably, and compliantly across borders.
“ATE’s partnerships are Africa’s new trade architecture,” added Molai. “We are proving that cooperation is the continent’s greatest competitive advantage.”
