BUSINESS IN AFRICA: Zoning in – African countries pair factories, logistics and ports to boost investment

African special economic zones (SEZs) are becoming larger industrial bets as governments and investors bring ports, factories, processing and logistics into the same development.

New projects in Kenya and Nigeria are putting major industrial facilities alongside maritime infrastructure, while operating zones in Togo and South Africa are showing how the model can support processing, exports and manufacturing.

In Kenya, construction has begun on the planned Dangote East Africa Petroleum Refinery in Lamu, part of a proposed $16-billion complex combining refining, petrochemicals and power generation.

The project is being developed in the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport Corridor, linking the planned industrial complex to a wider transport and logistics network serving regional markets.

In Nigeria, DP World, Ogun State and the Ogun Deep Sea Port Company have signed agreements to explore a 10,000ha development combining a proposed deep-sea port with a SEZ. The projects reflect a shift in the business case for SEZs, from providing land and incentives to reducing the cost and complexity of producing and moving goods.

Investing in Africa

“For us, that’s what successful SEZs are about – capturing more value in Africa, creating jobs, increasing exports and really building globally competitive African industries,” said Osam Iyahen, senior director and head of infrastructure at the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC).

Iyahen was speaking during an Invest Africa webinar on the role of SEZs in building competitive industries in Africa that was held on 1 October.

The AFC invests in power, transport, logistics, natural resources and heavy industry, making integrated zones attractive because they bring several of these requirements together. “SEZs are quite important to us because they bring all these sectors together,” Iyahen said.

The AFC invested $150-million in Arise Integrated Industrial Platforms in 2020 to support its expansion into Benin and Togo.

Iyahen said the platform has helped countries to move from exporting raw commodities towards local processing and manufacturing, attracting additional investment and creating jobs.

Togo provides a concrete example. Togo Soja, a soybean processing company based at the Adétikopé Industrial Platform, shipped its first export of processed shea butter on 1 October, opening the country’s 2026 export season for the product.

The shipment followed the ramp-up of a plant that has been operating since 2023.

The Adétikopé Industrial Platform says the operation is developing an integrated chain from raw-material supply and industrial processing to packaging and international markets.

“This shipment reflects the industrial dynamic developed on the platform and its ability to support companies from the transformation of raw materials to opening up to international markets,” said Idiola Sandah, general administrator of the platform’s coordination authority.

Togo introduced export taxes on cashew nuts, soybeans and shea nuts from January 2026 as it seeks to encourage more processing inside the country. The quantity of shea butter in the first shipment was not disclosed, but the move illustrates the commercial logic behind integrated industrial platforms: export more processed products rather than raw commodities.

Warehouses and ports

Logistics is another part of that equation. Agility Global is building warehouse parks in African cities, providing ready-to-use facilities for companies entering new markets. “

We’re building large-scale, first-world warehouse parks across the main cities in the continent,” said Geoffrey White, CEO of Agility Africa.

The company has opened facilities in five countries and some are already fully occupied, White said.

Its customers include e-commerce companies, agro-processors, manufacturers, vehicle assemblers and fast-moving consumer goods distributors. About 65% of its tenants are multinationals and 35% are small and medium-sized businesses.

“Our concept is to remove, for companies moving into Africa, the risk of land tenure and project execution, and to remove the capital burden of going into the African marketplace,” White said.

Ports are becoming another piece of the industrial proposition. At the Lagos Free Zone, Nigeria’s Lekki Deep Sea Port sits inside an industrial development designed to combine manufacturing, logistics and maritime access.

Tejaswi Avasarala, director of commercialisation at the Lagos Free Zone, said the project had been shaped by the more than five decades of manufacturing experience in Nigeria of Tolaram, a multinational conglomerate with diversified businesses. The company has a “very deep and first-hand understanding” of the challenges facing investors trying to build deeper value chains and local supply chains, Avasarala said.

“We are trying to bring all that into the way we have conceptualised and delivered Nigeria’s first deep-sea port,” he said.

The same model is now being explored on a larger scale in Ogun State. The proposed Ogun development remains at the planning stage, so its projected investment and employment figures have yet to become operating results.

Kenya is pursuing a similar port-industrial model in Mombasa. DP World and GulfCap Africa signed a shareholders agreement in September for the planned 222ha Mombasa Industrial Park. The first phase is expected to cover 40ha, and more than 60 local and international companies have expressed interest. The completed park is projected to support more than 20,000 direct and indirect jobs.

At Dongo Kundu, the Kenyan government has allocated about $572-million for infrastructure supporting a 3,000-acre SEZ that includes industrial parks, logistics facilities and a free port.

Further south, the Coega SEZ in South Africa shows what the model can look like after years of development. The zone, next to the Port of Ngqura in the Eastern Cape, had 67 operational investors and more than 11,000 operational jobs by the end of the 2024 financial year. – Bird Story Agency/DM

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