Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Saturday commended the United States for taking steps to allow some African goods into the US market but said the measure was long overdue.

"The AGOA (African Growth Opportunity Act) is the first US goodwill towards Africa, probably in the last 500 years," Museveni said here.

The major cause of Africa's under-development was lack of markets for their products in western countries, he said, as he called upon African leaders to begin a "liberation struggle" over trade barriers.

His comments came as the World Trade Organisation struggled to salvage a key agreement on global trade in marathon talks on Satur-day in Geneva, after a damaging rift between rich and the poor countries.

Museveni, in Zambia to open the country's agricultural and commercial trade show, urged Western countries to begin opening up their markets to Africa in order to improve the economies of poor countries.

He accused rich countries of making a lot of money on Africa's products by merely processing them and exporting them back to Africa at a higher price.

"This business of exporting unprocessed products should stop," Museveni said. "For me, Africans are the real donors. You donate these things to developed countries."

Latest AGOA Trade Data on AGOA.info


Click here to view a sector profile of Uganda’s bilateral trade with the United States, disaggregated by total exports and imports, AGOA exports and GSP exports.

Other regularly updated trade statistics on AGOA.info include: