John Humphrey, HM Trade Commissioner for Africa: “We are a great supporter of the African Continental Free Trade Area”

Platform Africa recently had the opportunity to catch up with John Humphrey, His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Africa, on his first visit to Mauritius in February 2025. On this occasion, Mr Humphrey shared his views on the bilateral opportunities between the UK and Mauritius in the areas of trade and education, while setting his wider perspective on prospects for UK-Africa trade and investment relations in the post-Brexit era.

John Humphrey was appointed to his current role in June 2022. As a former businessman, he began his career in the technology sector in a variety of commercial, general management and executive roles in the UK and overseas, before taking up the position of Group Chief Executive Officer of Kent HoldCo Limited (KHL), prior to joining the UK’s Department for Business and Trade (DBT).

Edited excerpts from an exclusive interview conducted by Platform Africa founder Samantha Seewoosurrun after a tour conducted at Middlesex University in Mauritius.

• What are some of your key takeaways from your first visit to Mauritius, which has included meetings with the Honourable Prime Minister Dr Navin Ramgoolam, Ministers and a tour of Middlesex University?

It has been really positive. This is my first trip to Mauritius ever. I think the timing is really good because the UK and Mauritius have both got new governments, which allows us to reset our relationships and build relationships that we can invest in.

What strikes me as the biggest opportunity is that both governments are really dedicated to economic growth and need to deliver for their populations. In some areas, the UK and Mauritius are competitors in the financial and professional services space, but potentially, our roles are somewhat different. To elaborate, London has a very deep capital market, and some really well-established institutions like the London Stock Exchange Group and the London Metal Exchange. Mauritius is really well placed in terms of access into Africa. Africa doesn’t get a large share of global foreign direct investment. I looked at the last UNCTAD World Investment Report, and the percentage of world investment into Africa had gone up from 3.5% to 5%, but only because global foreign direct investment in total had reduced, so the pie had got smaller. So, a jurisdiction which is well regulated, well run, and boasts key relationships and connections such as formal double taxation treaties into Africa, provides an opportunity for UK investors to be able to invest into Africa. 

So, one of the tricks for us is to look at how we make that work, practically speaking. One of the things we will be looking at is to try to bring a curated trade mission out. The way the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) operates is that we have a country sector matrix. We have country specialists, people like our Country Director here who really understand the market and how it operates, and then we have sector specialists, whether that’s in renewable energy, healthcare or in financial and professional services. Those people typically come from the industry that they are involved in.

• Could you comment on the trade landscape between the UK and Mauritius? What role does education play as an export?

Trade in general between the UK and Mauritius has been growing. It has grown quite well in the last 12 months or so and trade flows are at about 1.4 billion now. Mauritius runs a small trade surplus with the UK as Mauritius exports slightly more to the UK than the UK exports to Mauritius. So that feels to me like quite a healthy trade relationship because it’s a relationship of equals. However, it’s not just about the Mauritian market but about how can UK institutions, investors or businesses use Mauritius to reach Africa. 

In a way, Middlesex University illustrates that perfectly. Middlesex, a UK university, has built a significant branch campus with all of the normal facilities that you would expect at a university in Mauritius. 53% of the students are local, but 47% of the students are international. And of course, a large percentage of those international students are coming from Africa. So in a way, that illustrates perfectly how Mauritius can be used as a platform for Africa-centric exports. Mauritius is providing a platform for Middlesex to address the African market, and doing it remarkably successfully as well. 

So let me introduce education as an export. If you want to go to London as an international student, not only are the fees expensive, but also the cost of living. Of course, it’s a wonderful city which offers a great experience. But it’s not something that everybody can afford. So bringing that quality of education here means that the same education can be delivered at a price which is much lower than you might be able to deliver it otherwise. But you’re still getting the same quality of the education, the same quality of degree and the recognition of the degree.

And that to me feels like it’s inclusive. In addition, for Mauritian students, Middlesex University offer payment plans which reduce that financial hurdle, making the education even more accessible, and I think that is really positive.

• You also had the opportunity to discuss educational ties with Dr Kaviraj Sukon, Minister of Tertiary Education, Science and Research. Were there any particular takeaways from the meeting?

Having served previously as the Chancellor of the Open University of Mauritius and being an academic, Dr Kaviraj Sukon firmly believes in the need to increase the internationalisation and elevate the positioning of Mauritius. One of the things we were talking about here today at Middlesex was around the impact that the university has locally within the economy.

The fact that the fees are paid in pounds means that the University is bringing foreign currency into the country. Students might live on campus for the first year, but then they’re going out and they’re renting in the local community. Their families come for graduations and they may be renting cars and buying services locally. And of course, the university itself, with a campus this size, is employing a significant number of people within the local community as well.

I think one of the things that came across very strongly for me was the commitment from the government to build on that model and have more universities. We’ve recently entered into partnerships with University of London, and the London School of Economics which are looking at delivering courses here as well. On the technical and vocational side, there were conversations with King’s College Hospital for nurses training, among others. There is a lot of scope for not only the academic route but also professional and vocational training, including short courses.

• When foreign students come to study in the UK, do you feel that it has a real impact on trade and doing business?

It makes a huge difference. You really can’t underestimate the soft power of education, which is very formative, as you meet friends that you remain friends with. It is hugely important for mutual understanding. When it comes to Middlesex, they are saying that employability is 91% and the grades that were achieved here were actually higher in terms of the proportion of firsts relative to some of the other campuses. So it’s obviously a very good learning environment. It is great for the UK to have international students coming to the UK but this, from a trade perspective, is equally as important. There are fees and profitability that flow back. For the Mauritian students that study here in Mauritius, not only are they advocates for the university and a British education, but they are also advocates for Mauritius, and those networks will be into Africa. As the alumni grow, the importance of that will grow over time. It does matter for trade, even in a digital world, as people buy from people and do business. 

• Chevening Scholars is another route where we’ve had some scholars coming through Mauritius, but it’s obviously open to the world of African students. Do you have any views on that?

You’re generally talking about very bright and very able people who get those scholarships to go to the UK and do a Masters and that then becomes a worldwide network of alumni, typically of people who are going to go on to genuinely great things. 

• Let us come on to trade in the post-Brexit era. How would you describe the UK government’s broad approach to trade and investment in Africa today? 

I’m not a career diplomat. I come from a business background and a lot of my business career has been in trade. I’m mainly from the tech sector, but some of it lay in manufacturing, moving goods around, and selling services, and exports. I would say this: The level of support for British businesses now in terms of going out into the world and exporting or investing is better than it’s ever been.

I have a team of 110 people in Africa and we’re present on the ground in 19 different countries directly as DBT. We operate a matrix of country specialists and sector specialists who operate on a Pan-African basis. And, broadly speaking, we do four main things:

• Traditional trade and investment promotion, through missions such as Mining Indaba, where we were recently present;
• Undertake trade policy work, including regulatory issues and mutual recognition;
• Support major deals, which might have a government angle;
• Provide consular services for businesses in terms of practical difficulties, for example to do with currency devaluation or foreign exchange.

In terms of our approach, I would say we are outward-facing and looking to engage and  do trade. The UK is now responsible for its own trade and investment and has to make that work.

• One of the biggest projects in Africa from a trade perspective has been the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Are there steps that you’ve taken to help support this initiative? 

We are a great supporter of the African Continental Free Trade Area. Indeed, one of the defining features of Africa as a trade region is the very low levels of intra-regional trade at about 17% or thereabouts. 

You can see that things imported from the UK into one African country could have been made in the next-door neighbour economy, simply because it’s just too difficult to get the goods from point A to point B in Africa. That could be for all sorts of reasons. It could be just logistical difficulties or fragmentation across 54 economies. So, along trade corridors, you might be crossing several borders and you might have a lot of paperwork to do. Most of that probably isn’t digitalised so it’s really difficult. All of that translates into cost.

I think that the AfCFTA is a really important initiative to get around these barriers. There’s a lot of evidence that shows that intra-regional trade is value-added trade. Because typically, somebody might take an input from one country, add value to it in another country, and sell it in a third country – and so you’re creating value along the way. So I think the AfCFTA is hugely important for the economic future of Africa.

The UK was the first non-African country to sign an MOU with the AfCFTA. We do have a trade policy team based in Ghana, where the secretariat is based, specifically for that. We also have our own developing countries trading scheme (DCTS). It doesn’t apply to countries like Mauritius that have economic partnership agreements. But for all of the other countries, particularly the least developed countries in Africa, the DCTS applies and allows quota-free, tariff-free access for African exports, apart from items like weapons and such, into the UK. But I think the defining feature of it, which I think is really important, is that it has specific accumulation rules which allow you to build an African value chain between countries without losing the benefit of that quota-free, tariff-free access. So what we’re trying to do in a way is to support intra-regional trade, which to my mind aligns perfectly with what AfCFTA is trying to do. Once the AfCFTA really gets up and running, the need for DCTS will probably fall away to a certain degree.

It seems to me they’re complementary and we’re very supportive of the AfCFTA. I have been looking – as a commitment I made to the Secretary General of the AfCFTA – to find opportunities for British businesses that manufacture in Africa with local inputs to export within Africa under the Guided Trade Initiative. I haven’t actually managed to do that yet, but you can start to see that happening.

I think the approach that the AfCFTA are taking is to focus on corridors. They’re trying to break the problem down into smaller problems, particular trade corridors, and trying to ease the flow along those particular trade corridors. That seems to me a really sensible approach. And the other thing they’re doing is that they’ve been putting key agendas into place like focus on digital trade. I think it’s a great initiative and as the UK we want it to succeed. 

• When it comes to post-Brexit agreements, the UK has established the ESA-UK Economic Partnership Agreement, which currently covers Mauritius, Seychelles, Zimbabwe and Madagascar. Can you tell us a bit about the benefits this agreement is bringing to Mauritius and other economies? 

The Economic Partnership Agreements are development focused agreements, which have rolled over from the EU agreements, where we had existing trade which we wanted to protect from both sides. So they’re asymmetric and actually allow the partner country more access to the UK market than the UK has in reverse.

The idea is that as the economy develops, there is a programme by which the tariffs into the market change as well so that you end up in a place where you’ve got a fairly equal and open relationship over a period of time, which reflects the development of the countries. 

But I think what’s interesting now is that a relationship between that trading bloc and the UK can develop independently over time and start to reflect the interests of the parties, not necessarily of the big EU bloc that would have been there previously.

There is a schedule with these agreements of regular meetings and reviews. They will look to extend those agreements, add things to them and develop them over time. But they will now develop more as suits the parties concerned since it is a smaller agreement. And, of course, I’ve already mentioned the DCTS. DCTS too reflects that independence of doing things, and being able to do our own developing countries trading scheme.

We have the Strategic Trade Partnership for Mauritius and we have a range of different arrangements that come with different names. Coming to other African economies, we have what’s called an ETIP with Nigeria. We have the trade policy of the trade agreement, but I think the strategic partnership agreement lays out more about how we are going to work together. It is like a strategic overlay over the top of that to say we will focus on particular sectors more than others. It is like an agreed roadmap of how we are going to try to move things along. I believe there is a review of the Mauritius agreement coming up, and you now have a new government on each side.

We also have a new trade envoy for Mauritius, Dr. Allin-Khan. I’m looking forward to meeting her. I’m due to be back in the UK at the end of March or beginning of April and I’m hoping to meet the trade envoys when I’m back in London. Indeed, the trade envoy programme for us has been great. They carry that stamp of having been appointed by the government and that weight to get things done.

• Let’s turn to the appetite of British businesses to engage with Africa. So how do you see their position? How are SMEs doing in terms of trying to access the market? 

We do provide quite a lot of support for SMEs – not just SMEs coming into Africa, but other markets as well.We have the Export Academy in the UK, trade advisers in the UK and international trade advisers. We are trying to get companies up the curve of how to export and develop their exports.

We have the Export Support Service (ESS), which is people in market. We have an ESS team in Africa, and it’s almost like a first calling point. So if you’re an SME, you call into the ESS, and if they can actually do business – if it is relatively straightforward like a product that’s relatively self-contained – it can be distributed with help from ESS. It could also help you to find a local partner.

That allows the DBT teams to focus on deals that might be a little bit more complicated. But I think in general, most of the markets in Africa are probably not the right place for small and medium-sized enterprises to cut their teeth, unless they’re in specific areas or sectors, or they’re targeting particular markets that might be more developed and more accessible.

For example, I don’t think I’d feel any great worry about an SME coming and operating in Mauritius. And of course, many SMEs operate in South Africa, Kenya, and other more developed markets. However, I think some of the markets are really very difficult.

If you’re struggling to get paid, if you’re a larger company, you can probably live with that for a while. If you were meant to get paid in 30 days, but you didn’t get paid for 90 days, it’s probably not existential. But if you’re a small business, and you were meant to get paid in 30 days, and you don’t get paid in 90 or 120 days, it’s a problem. So I do think that companies do have to weigh such challenges and I think part of our job is to motivate such thought processes. We want the businesses to succeed and the case studies of success.

I’d say, in general, companies must be quite selective in terms of the markets they approach in an African context, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises and also certain types of businesses. A services business might be less exposed than a goods business, for example. More generally, Africa in total accounts for between 2.5% to 3% of total UK trade. It’s a relatively small percentage of total UK trade. That doesn’t mean it isn’t important, but I think what it tells you is that we’ve a lot of work to do to increase trade between the UK and Africa. 

I think the nature of that trade has changed significantly. We’ve increasingly moved away from being a manufacturing economy to being a services economy. We still do a lot of manufacturing but that tends to be advanced manufacturing, like Formula One or jet engines or aircrafts. I think the largest part of my role is to find the geographic spaces and the market segments where companies can be successful. And that’s what you want a DBT to bring – because we don’t do business and we’re simply trying to facilitate and enable yours.

• Is there a plan for another UK-African Investment Summit?

There’s no plan at the moment for that. The last one got postponed because we were heading into the election. I think what we might do is do things a little bit differently. So we’ve been running for the last few years a very successful regional Western Central African francophone event, which has been very successful, which has helped us in diversifying relationships and also been a boon for those countries as well. The plan is for the next edition of that to be held in Africa. We are also looking at a more regional based approach and bilateral types of events. 

• Finally, from your various missions, can you give us an idea of any success story or a standout initiative that comes to your mind? 

There are so many really, if I’m honest. Middlesex University is one.

I’ve visited a Unilever factory in Ghana and then another Unilever factory in Addis Ababa. British companies are good employers. They pay good salaries. They take their CSR responsibilities seriously. 

The UK has got a good story in Africa and some really surprising success stories have formed part of it. In Kenya, for example, the horticulture and the flowers are just incredible and I think most of the cut veg of M&S comes from Kenya. So there are some seriously surprising stories – both small and big. 

Some markets are more natural markets for us. Traditionally we’ve done a lot of business with Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa which are all Commonwealth countries. But it’s interesting to see the Commonwealth expanding and countries like Gabon and Togo and, of course, Mozambique and Rwanda, all becoming part of the Commonwealth. So it’s starting to develop into something very different.

But for me it is also interesting to see the West and Central African Francophone starting to do more business with us, in places like Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal. A large road project in Senegal amounted to around 600 million by the end of the last financial year. In Morocco, they’ve won the World Cup along with Spain and Portugal and there are a lot of opportunities for British companies.

I grew up partly in Africa, having spent some of my childhood years between Nigeria and Botswana. I can’t wait to see what lies ahead for the continent!