Today’s graphs show selected trading heavyweights and their five largest African trading partners, along with the trade volume by US dollar amount per country. The BRICS countries minus China are presented in a bar graph for ease of comparison.

South Africa is the only country among the top five trading partners for all the countries we selected, and is also a major player in inter-African trade; its total trade volume with other African countries was $13.6 billion in 2012. Unsurprisingly, Nigeria and Egypt, which along with South Africa are Africa’s three largest economies, were other popular trading partners.

Data is from 2012, the last year for which consistent data is available.

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