How infrastructure and interconnected logistics hubs are reshaping intra-regional trade

Tuesday 2nd December 2025

by inAfrika Newsroom

Infrastructure and interconnected logistics hubs are now at the centre of Africa’s push for deeper intra-regional trade. When a truck leaves Dar es Salaam for Kigali, Bujumbura or Lubumbashi, it is not only driving on a strip of asphalt. It is moving through a chain of ports, highways, bridges, weighbridges, dry ports, rail yards and border posts that together decide how competitive regional businesses can be.

For years, African leaders have argued that the future belongs to those who trade with their neighbours, not only distant markets. Yet intra-African trade still sits far below its potential. The barrier is often not lack of ambition, but the cost and complexity of moving cargo from one border to another.

Every hour lost at a congested port, every diversion around a damaged road and every repeated inspection at a border adds cost to the final product. These hidden charges push regional traders out of the market and make imports that travel through more efficient global supply chains appear cheaper than they should.

In this context, infrastructure and interconnected logistics hubs have become more important than stand-alone roads or ports. A country can invest heavily in its road network and still face high logistics costs if those roads do not link into an intelligent web of logistics nodes.

Modern trade is built around corridors and hubs: trunk and regional roads feeding seaports, dry ports, inland container depots, logistics parks, industrial zones and streamlined border posts. In this model, a highway is not just a route for trucks. It is a moving conveyor feeding logistics “cities” where goods are stored, sorted, processed, repackaged and dispatched deeper into the region.

Tanzania’s experience shows how this shift works in practice. Over the past two decades, the national road network has been upgraded and extended from the coast into the heart of the continent. Trunk roads now link Dar es Salaam, Tanga and Mtwara to border posts serving Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi and Zambia.

New bridges, such as Kigongo–Busisi over Lake Victoria, and bypass roads around fast-growing cities are designed as pieces of larger corridors. Their purpose is to cut hours from journeys and to make neighbours’ access to the sea more reliable and predictable.

At the same time, a new generation of logistics hubs is emerging along these corridors. Dry ports and inland container depots near Dar es Salaam, and inland facilities such as Kwala, are built to pull containers away from the seaport quickly. Instead of waiting several days at the waterfront, cargo can move inland for clearance and redistribution.

For transporters and importers across the region, this means fewer delays, lower storage costs and better planning. For manufacturers and farmers, it opens doors to create value closer to home: packaging, cold storage, light assembly and agro-processing can all take place near these hubs, rather than shipping raw inputs out and finished goods back in.

Road agencies such as TANROADS are already adapting their planning to this more connected reality. Engineers no longer see a trunk road as a simple line on a map. They treat it as part of a living corridor that must serve ports, link logistics hubs and carry both regional transit and local traffic safely. Roads leading to dry ports or special economic zones, for example, are now designed for high axle loads, reliable year-round access and safe interaction between heavy trucks and surrounding communities. Investment choices increasingly weigh not only current traffic, but also the strategic role of each section in trade and industrialisation.

Alongside concrete and asphalt, “soft” infrastructure plays a growing role. One-stop border posts, harmonised axle-load rules, digital weighbridges, road-asset management tools and corridor performance dashboards all help maximise economic value from each kilometre of road.

When customs procedures are simplified, when data flows smoothly between agencies, and when trucks move through weighbridges and borders with fewer stops, the same physical road suddenly becomes more productive for traders and carriers. In that way, infrastructure and interconnected logistics hubs gain strength from regulatory and digital reform.

The African Continental Free Trade Area adds urgency to this agenda. As tariffs fall, the key question will not be customs duties but whether infrastructure and logistics ecosystems can handle higher trade volumes at competitive cost. Countries that combine high-quality corridors, smart logistics hubs and investor-friendly rules will become natural gateways for their regions.

Tanzania, sitting at the heart of East and Central African routes, is well-positioned to play that role if it stays the course: completing flagship projects, maintaining existing roads to high standards and planning new investments with a clear regional lens.