Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa
Lilongwe, Malawi
Abbreviation
ACE
Location
Lilongwe, Malawi
Region
Africa
Product Types
Agricultural
About Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa
The Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa (ACE), founded in 2004 and headquartered in Lilongwe, Malawi, pioneered electronic commodity exchange infrastructure for southern Africa. ACE facilitates transparent spot trading for maize, soybean, groundnuts (peanuts), and other staple crops using a warehouse receipt system that enables smallholder farmers to access competitive prices and agricultural finance. ACE's electronic trading model has been replicated across sub-Saharan Africa as a model for commoditising smallholder agricultural production.
More Exchanges in Africa
Ghana Commodity Exchange
GCX · Accra, GhanaThe Ghana Commodity Exchange (GCX), established in 2018, is Ghana's national regulated commodity exchange developed with support from the Government of Ghana and the USAID. GCX facilitates transparent electronic spot-trading of agricultural commodities including maize, soybean, sorghum, paddy rice, and sesame, connecting smallholder farmers to buyers and reducing post-harvest losses. The exchange operates certified warehouses across Ghana to support against-warehouse-receipt financing, improving access to credit for rural agricultural producers.
Mercantile Exchange of Madagascar
MEX · Antananarivo, MadagascarThe Mercantile Exchange of Madagascar (MEX) is a commodity exchange based in Antananarivo, Madagascar, facilitating trading of agricultural commodities, metals, and energy products. Madagascar is a key producer of vanilla (responsible for ~80% of global vanilla supply), cloves, and other tropical agricultural exports. MEX provides a domestic trading platform supporting Madagascar's agricultural and natural resource sectors, offering price-discovery services for both local producers and international buyers.
Lagos Commodities and Futures Exchange
LCFE · Lagos, NigeriaThe Lagos Commodities and Futures Exchange (LCFE) is a Nigerian commodity futures exchange licensed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC Nigeria). Based in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital and Africa's largest metropolitan economy, LCFE is designed to provide price discovery and risk-management instruments for Nigeria's key commodity sectors including agricultural products, crude oil and natural gas, currencies, and solid minerals. Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and a significant agricultural economy, and LCFE represents an important step in developing formal commodity derivatives infrastructure in West Africa.
Nairobi Coffee Exchange
NCE · Nairobi, KenyaThe Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) is Kenya's primary auction market for specialty coffee, operating under the Kenya Coffee Traders Association and the Nairobi Coffee Exchange Act. NCE conducts weekly Tuesday auctions in which buyers bid for certified lots of Kenyan arabica coffee, graded and described by Kenya's Coffee Board grading system (AA, AB, C, PB, and others). Kenya is world-renowned for producing some of the finest washed arabica coffees, and the NCE auction system determines the global benchmark prices for Kenyan specialty coffee.