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AGOA to build capacities for Africa

Published date:
Friday, 29 April 2011

An expert in Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has said the export of non-petroleum products to the US under the Act is rising and efforts are underway to help build capacities of African countries in coming up with exports from various sectors.

Daniel Yohannes from US said although the oil export to USA under AGOA has continued to dominate at about 90 per cent, other products are recording increasing levels.

He said there was progress in exports of goods outside oil which was good for Africa in penetrating the vast USA market.

Mr Yohannes said during a teleconference on Tuesday that goods other than oil traded between the US and Africa had grown by 18 per cent in 2010 and that there was a lot of effort being made to the activities of other goods especially in the agricultural sector.

"We are encouraged by the activities outside petroleum, like last year's trade of goods other than oil went up 18 per cent and that is a good statistical growth.

"Oil may dominate AGOA but oil is just the biggest commodity export by the Sub-Sahara countries even outside AGOA," said Yohannes who is chief executive officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

He said the MCC was working hard at improving capacity of Africa countries fight among other things poverty through agriculture and that would eventually benefit the continent through the AGOA initiative.

Mr Yohannes said the MCC was spending US$ 5.5 billion for Africa with more than 50 per cent of that going towards the enhancement of agriculture and irrigation to boost the continent's capacity.

He said MCC was focused on infrastructure development with focus on roads, ports, airports and bridges which have all been identified as a hindering factor towards making Africa products reach the US market at a competitive rate.

He expressed happiness that trade between Africa and the USA was growing.

In 2010, trade had increased by 31 per cent and that figure was 438 per cent higher than in the initial year of 2001.

He described the MCC as an initiative that would help boost sectors that were not into oil in Africa build capacity and expand.



“ Latest AGOA Trade Data currently available on AGOA.info


Click here to view a sector profile of Zambia'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: (click each link to view)

  • AGOA-Beneficiary Countries’ AGOA and GSP Trade Aggregates

  • AGOA Trade by Industry Sector

  • Apparel Trade under AGOA’s Wearing Apparel Provisions

  • Latest Apparel Quotas under AGOA

  • Bilateral Trade Data for all AGOA-eligible countries individually.




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