Africa has the ingredients to overtake China as the “world’s factory” and is wooing Australian investors with promises of seamless trade across borders, reducing political instability and a rapidly growing young workforce with lower labour costs.

The head of Africa’s sprawling free trade zone, Wamkele Mene, said the continent was opening up its economy and had seized upon the global push to diversify supply chains as it looked to move away from trading patterns dominated by historical colonial ties.