Thread by @abcpoppins

Johnson pledged Uganda’s “beef will have honoured place on tables of post Brexit Britain” and “families across Angola will be tucking into delicious chicken from NI”

But Portugal Belgium Italy Spain France are more successful meat exporters to Angola

on.ft.com/2TSjCtJ

EU27 is biggest goods exporter into Africa with a total value in 2018 of nearly $170bn. The figure is 14 times the $12bn for UK and nearly double $90bn for China, which is by far the largest single exporter to the continent and dwarfs the $28bn for the US, ITC data show.

In 2018 France and Germany exported to Africa more than double the value of goods that Britain did.

“Africa is home to eight of the 15 fastest growing economies in the world and its economic prosperity matters to UK,” Liz Truss said

Yet in Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Ghana, three African countries with economic growth around 7 per cent in 2019, at least one EU country features in their top 10 sources of imports, while the UK does not even make it into the top 25.

UK is in top 10 exporters to S Africa but value still accounts for only half of German exports.

“Africa is important region especially with creation of African Continental Free Trade Area and commitment to greater regional economic integration.”

“Nothing has been stopping the UK from trading with African countries or investing in them until now [and trade with Africa] . . . won’t be able to replace trade with the EU,” said Anna Jerzewska, an independent international trade and customs specialist.

But being inside the EU has not stopped Italy, Ireland and France from making larger investment in environmental technology than Britain, according to data from fDi Markets, an FT-owned database that tracks cross-border greenfield investment since 2003.

In contrast, more than 40% of capital invested by UK businesses into sub-Saharan Africa since 2003 were in coal, oil and gas projects, fDi Markets data show, while German businesses invested largely in automotive and logistics projects.

Despite “a breadth and depth of expertise that simply cannot be matched by any other nation”, said Johnson, other EU countries managed greater presence in all top non-fuel African imports.

2018, the value of electrical machinery France exported to the continent was 4 x that of UK and Italy exported nearly three times the value of machinery that Britain did, according to ITC data.

At the summit, Mr Johnson made the example of the monorail trains for the “great and growing city” of Cairo that will be made in Derby, in the English midlands. Yet, in 2018 the value of the vehicles Germany exported to Africa was three times greater than the UK.

Africa is small and shrinking exports destination for UK, while Britain could be growing market for Africa if Brexit does not mean losing tariff-free access (with some exceptions) to EU market under Generalised Scheme of Preferences programme. UK government pledged it would not.

“The importance of Africa as destination for UK exports is dwarfed by other destinations such as EU,” said Ingo Borchert, senior lecturer at UK Trade Policy Observatory at the Uni of Sussex, “but from point of view of African exporters, the UK could be a quite important market.”

According to data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics, UK goods exports to the whole continent of Africa accounted for only 2.6 per cent of the total in 2019, down from 4.1 per cent in 2012.