ZIMBABWE shrugged off competition from five other countries to win the bid to host the headquarters of the Intra-African Trade Fair Company (IATFCO) due to its conferencing facilities and air connectivity, fresh details have emerged.
Early this month, outgoing Afreximbank president Benedict Oramah said the co-founders had resolved to make IATF a standalone entity, with its headquarters to be built in Zimbabwe.
IATF was co-founded by Afreximbank, the African Union Commission and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat to drive intra-African trade and held trade fairs in 2018, 2021, 2023 and 2025.
Olusegun Obasanjo, IATF Advisory Council chairperson and former Nigerian President, said Zimbabwe won the bid ahead of Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Malawi, Zambia and South Africa.
He said Zimbabwe was “competitively selected for its conferencing facilities, robust air connectivity, accommodation capacity and pledged land for expansion”.
“This opens a new chapter for IATF as it continues powering growth in intra-African trade and playing its role as the most important trade and investment gathering on the continent,” Obasanjo said.
“IATF is a symbol of Africa’s economic awakening, where the power of trade and investment unifies us from across regions of the African continent and breathes life into the ambition of the African Continental Free Trade Area,” Obasanjo said.
To provide a solid foundation for IATFCO, Afreximbank has injected a seed capital of US$28 million, Oramah said, urging African governments, corporations and financial institutions to “support it during its early teething stage”.
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IATF is a platform for businesses to showcase their goods and services to visitors and buyers while exploring opportunities and exchanging information.
It seeks to tap into opportunities from AfCFTA’s single market of over 1,4 billion people and GDP of over US$3,5 trillion.
Attended by more than 112 000 visitors from 132 countries, IATF2025, which took place from September 4 to 10 in Algiers, Algeria, recorded US$48,3 billion in trade and investment deals signed, up from US$43,8 billion at the previous edition in Egypt in 2023.
