Trade within and between regions can play an important role in stimulating economic growth and reducing poverty, so governments should do their upmost to support the cross-border movement of goods and services. But in much of sub-Saharan Africa, this simply isn’t happening. Official figures for 2008 suggest intra-regional trade in Africa was just 10% of total trade, compared to 27% within Latin America and the Caribbean, 47% in Asia and 70% in the European Union, although this didn’t take into account substantial informal trade.