News Search

Tucked on a mountain slope across a road from the barren desert of southeastern Namibia, rows of lush green vineyards are producing grapes enjoyed in Europe, China, the Middle East and soon, in the United States.Temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius in the summer do not deter thousands of seasonal workers from flocking to this hidden corner close to the village of Noordoewer near the border with South Africa to harvest the high quality seedless grapes.From here, the sweet-tasting grapes mostly of the green Thompson seedless sort and others like...

"Expanding and Diversifying Trade to Promote Growth and Competitiveness" will be the theme of the 2005 U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum July 18-20 in Dakar, Senegal.Better known as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum, the event consists of three parallel meetings: one with the United States and the governments of the 37 eligible sub-Saharan Africa countries; one between U.S. and African private sectors; and one involving civil-society organizations from the United States and Africa.The AGOA Forum...

The choice of Senegal to host the fourth AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act) Forum, is based on political and diplomatic reasons, Senegalese Ambassador to Washington, Amadou Lamine Ba, said in Dakar Wednesday.The choice is not linked to AGOA criteria or economic performances. Senegal meets the governance criteria and it is a model country for Americans, " he said during a press briefing.He further underscored that the country's capacity to host the forum is "considered fairly satisfactory'' and its geographical proximity with the...

US textile, apparel and fibre producing trade associations yesterday filed four new safeguard petitions covering eight categories to limit the growth of US textile and apparel imports from China. The industry also said that it had refiled a petition on curtains on June 22 that the US government rejected for technical reasons on June 21.The categories covered by this latest filing are: cotton/man-made fibre non-knit shirts (categories 341/641); cotton/man-made fibre skirts (342/642); cotton/man-made fibre pyjamas/nightwear (351/651);...

South African empowerment company ICAN has not applied for the funding of a stake it said it would take in a Coega textiles project, despite saying in May that it was weeks away from securing it.The setback casts a shadow over Coega's first investor.The development zone, established to draw foreign investment, has for years been struggling to tie down investors.At a media conference on May 18 to announce the project to make fire retardant industrial textiles, ICAN CE Paul Jones said Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) funding for his...

Lesotho's economic outlook is expected to lag behind world and African averages, according to Standard Bank economist Jan Duvenage's mid-year gauge of the country's economy.IMF forecasts expect the economy to grow by 2.4 percent this year and 3 percent in 2006, compared to African averages of 5 percent and 5.4 percent for the same years.Duvenage says growth constraints include food insecurity, soil degradation, lower agricultural efficiency and a high HIV and Aids infection rate.Present growth has been sustained by clothing and textile...

Near a field sown with ageing anti-personnel mines, dozens of women scraping, sorting and vacuum-packing cashew nuts in a new tin-roofed factory may be part of the solution to Africa's economic woes. From Cape to Cairo, the world's poorest continent is blessed with verdant plains, forests of valuable hardwood trees and deep veins of ores. But it's largely bereft of skilled industry producing the finished products - like foodstuffs, furniture and jewellery - where the real earnings lie. That may be changing in Guinea-Bissau, where the...

WESGRO has announced a R2.5 million investment in the province's clothing and textile industry with the establishment of a bedding manufacturing plant in Bellville South, Cape Town.Joyce Cheung, from the trade and investment promotion agency's investment promotion department (WESGRO), said it strongly believes that the investment will have a positive impact in a sector severely affected by factors such as the strengthening of the rand and the removal of quotas on clothing and textile imports.She said despite these adverse conditions, the...

Faced with twin threats to its prosperous economy, Mauritius's newly-elected Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam said he would negotiate hard for better world trade deals for its sugar and textile industries.In an interview with Reuters shortly after winning elections on Monday night, Ramgoolam said he would plead with rich countries to resurrect accords giving Mauritius preferential access to their markets for two of its most important exports."One priority is the problem of negotiation with the European Union on sugar," he said. "We are not...

The textile and clothing manufacturing industry is not a sustainable option for Southern Africa in the long term, according to a UN economist. The sector - one of Southern Africa's few export industries - is struggling to compete in a quota-free global market.Manufacturers have been hard-hit by the termination of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA), which came to an end in January this year. The MFA was introduced 30 years ago to protect the textile industries of developed countries by imposing quotas on high-volume producers such as China,...

Ties between the United States and Africa have been strengthened with a new South African Airways (SAA) passenger and cargo service - which began at the weekend - linking Washington to Johannesburg for the first time, the US embassy in Pretoria said on Tuesday.It reported that the launch of the new air route was celebrated at a reception held on June 29 in the grand foyer of the Library of Congress in Washington.Former Congressman Howard Wolpe, who chaired the House Africa Sub-committee and now runs the Africa programme at the Woodrow Wilson...

While free trade agreements (FTA's) may be an effective way of cementing relationships between two countries, few governments consider the credit worthiness of the prospective trading partners, according to Credit Guarantee senior economist Luke Doig.“Generally preferential trade agreements between countries or regions are designed to boost exports and the manufacturing sectors of the respective countries.“However, once the political fervour has moved on, exporters are faced with the potential pitfalls of non-payment with little legal or...

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) was a "measurable success" in 2004, an annual report prepared by the United States government has said.The report titled: 2005 Comprehensive Report on US Trade and Investment Policy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa and Implementation of AGOA (Note: this report can be downloaded from AGOA.info's archives here), indicates that AGOA exports to US were about $26.6 billion, an increase of 88 percent in 2003.Agoa exports from Uganda worth $2.6 million (Shs4.8 billion) in the first half of 2004 greatly...

Unlike SA's divided business movement, corporate US more often than not speaks with a unified and strong voice; the US Chamber of Commerce represents 3m US businesses and is influential in lobbying the US government in the interests of its members.So it's good news and, possibly, a sign of things to come, when its president and CE, Tom Donohue, says more US companies want to invest in Southern Africa because this region offers an "abundant supply" of natural resources, and SA is at the business heart of the region.This means the number of US...

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has helped level the playing field for Africa's access to U.S. agricultural markets, but American tariffs and subsidies are still blocking full access by Africa's farm producers, according to a panel of agricultural specialists participating in the 2005 Corporate Council on Africa U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Baltimore June 21-24.Rosa Whittaker, former assistant U.S. trade representative (USTR) for Africa, while acknowledging the steps forward, pointed to some of the basic problems that need to...

South African policy makers must decide on the appropriate approach to take against the surge of cheap Chinese textile and clothing imports, but should steer away from adopting measures that could be detrimental to free trade, Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, said on Friday.Many local clothing and textile manufacturers are facing extinction due to the proliferation of low-cost products from China, which has resulted in factory closures and massive job losses in the labour intensive sector.Barroso, who was in the...

The International Con-federation of Free Trade Unions has requested the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to urgently examine the impact of trade liberalisation on the textile and clothing sector following the end of the quota system in December 2004.At their executive board meeting, the organisation also took note of the struggle against job losses and poverty by the Congress of South African Unions (COSATU) and expressed its solidarity for their planned protest today.The World Trade Organisation's liberalisation policy has posed a serious...

The US will block all cloth imports under the Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) if the fabric is from countries that are outside the AGOA arrangement in 2006, reports Anne Mugisa.US Ambassador Jimmy Kolker on Monday said the agreement on sourcing the fabric from countries outside the AGOA arrangement expires in 2006."Fabrics and cloth for AGOA must come from an AGOA-eligible country. I hope Uganda will seize that opportunity," Kolker said at the globalisation seminar he opened at Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi. He said AGOA was extended...

China has announced plans to launch a new quota system to check its booming exports of textiles, a mechanism for effecting a deal reached with the European Union 10 days ago that eased trade friction.China cancelled export quotas at the start of January as part of a global move to end textile quotas. But surges in textile and clothing exports upset the European Union and the US who sought to impose safeguards.Under the new regulations, which go into effect on July 20, export licences issued by the Commerce Ministry will be determined based...

The US business community sees great potential for growth in the relationship between the US and South Africa, with increasingly more US businesses interested in investing in, exporting to, and importing from this country, according to Thomas Donohue, President and CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce.Donohue was speaking at the University of Cape Town (UCT)'s Graduate School of Business on Friday, where he was upbeat in his assessment about the future potential of co-operation between businesses in both countries."The American business...

China's vice-premier Wu Yi stoked a swirling trade row with the United States Monday, attacking American limits on Chinese textile exports for impairing the rights of Chinese enterprises.Wu stressed Beijing was "resolutely" opposed to such politicising of trade issues and called for a negotiated settlement.The vice-premier's comments in Hong Kong came amid United States and European Union concerns over a huge jump in Chinese garment exports following the end of a global textile quota system on 1 January 2005.Although the EU last week struck...

Five African presidents have criticised the economic criteria they must meet before their nations can qualify for a preferential trade deal that gives Africa greater access to the U.S. market.Speaking to reporters after meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House Monday, the leaders of Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia and Niger told reporters that they have to be "poor enough" to export to the United States under the controversial African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). AGOA was passed by Congress in 2000 after...

African Union trade ministers meeting in Cairo this week are eager to increase Africa's share of the growing world market, according to Deputy US Trade Representative Peter Allgeier, who met with the ministers on Tuesday."All of us are committed to using the Doha negotiations to help reverse the trend that has occurred in Africa of a declining share of world trade," Allgeier said from Cairo."We think that the Doha negotiations can help to reverse that and allow African countries to take advantage of the great expansion in trade that has...

It was a basket of mixed fortunes for garment manufacturing firms based in the Export Processing Zones when Finance Minister David Mwiraria unveiled the country's financial statement.The apparel firms have been reeling under the weight of ballooning production costs mainly resulting from relatively high wages coupled with high-energy costs, which have fast edged out Kenya from the lucrative US market.However, the sector received respite when the finance minister revealed the government has applied the brakes on the annual wage increment,...

The business climate on the continent of Africa is changing for the better. Last year, Africa saw the highest rates of return on investment of any region in the world. Many international investors have already learned that they can earn money along with their African partners while making significant contributions to improving African economies - critical to addressing poverty. Now Americans, particularly small and medium business owners, are waking up to the win-win opportunities in Africa.It is against this backdrop that The Corporate...

African Union trade ministers meeting in Cairo June 8-9 are eager to increase Africa's share of the growing world market, according to Deputy U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Peter F. Allgeier, who met with the ministers June 8. "All of us are committed to using the Doha negotiations to help reverse the trend that has occurred in Africa of a declining share of world trade," Allgeier said from Cairo during a June 8 telephone press conference with reporters in Washington."We think that the Doha negotiations can help to reverse that and allow...

Manufacturers want a leeway for textile firms to peg wages on performance rather than the minimum wage set by the Government.Kenya Association of Manufacturers, the sector's umbrella organisation, said yesterday that the textile industry may collapse unless its labour costs are reduced.Local textile firms are feeling the effects of the quota system scrapped by the World Trade Organisation in January. For the last three months 2,000 people have lost jobs, while at least six textile companies have closed their doors in the country.The removal...

The United States Assistant Trade Representative for Africa, Florizelle Liser, has said that her country is pleased with COMESA work. "What COMESA is doing is really important. It is one of the most impressive and best run regional organisations," Liser said, while recognizing the COMESA leadership for its focus determination and vision. Liser, who deliberated on preferential market access, said that COMESA countries have over 98% duty free access to the USA market because of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). She however,...

US curbs on Chinese textile exports will give only temporary relief to African producers, so Africa must implement economic reforms to help firms make more competitive garments, a U.S. trade official said yesterday.Sub-Saharan African states have seen their textile industries grow sharply in the last five years thanks to a preferential trade deal with the United States, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).AGOA provides the poor countries with duty and quota-free access to the $11 trillion US market.But that advantage is under...

China says it will remove export tariffs on 81 categories of textiles that were introduced at the start of 2005 and will also cancel tariff increases on 74 products planned to start Wednesday, according to the Chinese Ministry of Finance.The unexplained announcement is a turnaround from China’s pledge to push up tariffs on 74 products from 1 June onwards.China imposed duties on a range of textile goods on 1 January in an attempt to prevent the US and the EU from introducing protectionist measures to stop a surge in cheap exports after...

President Mwai Kibaki last week moved to protect about the jobs in Export Processing Zones (EPZ) as George W. Bush assured textile exporters to the US that all was not lost following the expiry of the Multi-Fibre Agreement in January.Mr Kibaki asked the Ministries of Finance and Trade and Industry to consult with EPZ operators to stem the "real threat" to 40,000 local jobs in Kenya's garment and apparel industry, due to rising exports to Europe and the US from Asia. The rise in Asian exports has begun to erode African cloth makers' share of...

Exports from the 37 African countries eligible for duty-free exports to the US under that country's African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) jumped 88% to $26,6bn last year over 2003, says the latest Agoa annual report, submitted to the US congress by US President George Bush yesterday.US exports to sub-Saharan Africa rose a quarter to $8,6bn, according to the report released by the US Bureau of International Information Programmes.The figures support the widely held view in the US and Africa that the five-year old Agoa initiative has been...

Sub Saharan African textile and garment manufacturers will form a regional body to counter the effects of competition from China and the imminent expiry of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa). The plan to create an industry body was endorsed by Comesa and the East African Community (EAC) at a cotton and textile executive summit in Nairobi last week.The event was organised by the Regional Agricultural Trade Expansion Support Programme (RATES), a US Agency for International Development (USAid) funded project in collaboration and with...

China said today that it will up tariffs on 74 categories of textile exports in response to protectionist action by the US and EU to curb the increase in Chinese exports.The Chinese Ministry of Finance said that tariffs would be increased on 74 different textiles, beginning on 1 June.Most of the categories – which include trousers, T-shirts and underwear - will be subject to an increase of 1 yuan per unit from 0.2 yuan, with the largest tariff being 4 yuan."The decision was approved by the State Council”, the ministry said in a statement...

Today [May 19th], the President submitted to Congress the 2005 Comprehensive Report on U.S. Trade and Investment Policy for Sub-Saharan Africa and Implementation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act. The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), Title I of the Trade and Development Act of 2000, states that the President shall submit such reports annually through 2008. The report is on the progress of AGOA implementation and general trade and investment developments between the United States and Africa.Highlights from the 2005 report: ...

Less than a week after announcing the re-imposition of quotas on three categories of Chinese textile products, the US Commerce Department on Wednesday instituted so-called safeguard measures on another four product groups.The latest measures cover men’s and boys’ cotton and manmade fibre shirts (category 340/640), manmade fibre trousers (category 647/648), manmade fibre knit shirts and blouses (category 638/639), and combed cotton yarn (category 301) – worth around $914 million in imports from China.The Committee for the Implementation...

In a bid to revamp the textile industry in Ghana, the ministry of Trade and Industry has introduced new guidelines to curb smuggling of cheap and low quality textiles.Among the measures that the minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Alan Kyeremanten announced yesterday at a press conference in Accra was the creation of the Takoradi Port as a new single import corridor for all African Textile Prints (ATP) coming into Ghana. "All imports of African prints in commercial quantities shall be restricted to only Takoradi Port.""What this effectively...

The textile sub-sector appears to be on the verge of final collapse as the workers have announced that 50 other factories currently in distress may close down operations unless urgent fiscal measures are adopted by government.Already, National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers had said 100 factories had been shut down since the country joined the World Trade Organisation which paved the way for the liberalisation of trade in Nigeria.They noted that only ten out of the 150 factories which existed in 1999 are in stable...

China slammed the United States and European Union on Wednesday for "unfair" and "protectionist" actions to counter its booming textile exports, while dismissing claims it manipulated its currency to gain an unfair trade advantage.Commerce Minister Bo Xilai blasted developed countries for arguing for global standards on free trade when they enjoyed absolute advantages but then placing restrictions when their interests were threatened.Under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, such "double standards are not allowed," he said.The US and the...

Coega Development Corporation (CDC) has finally signed its first investor for the Port Elizabeth-based harbour project, the company said here on Wednesday.Belgian-owned Sander International Textiles has signed a 20-year lease with Coega. The investment with Coega is worth R200m, said Vuyelwa Qinga-Vika, spokesperson for CDC.Sander International RSA will occupy 10ha of the 40ha allocated for the textile cluster.The CDC had been unsuccessful in their attempts to get investors to commit to the project in the past.Signing with the project's...

Leading clothing retailers Foschini, Woolworths, Truworths and Edcon have rejected the Congress of South African Trade Unions' (Cosatu's) demand that they sign a code committing them to procuring 75% of their products locally. Cosatu said last week it was going to organise mass action against retailers after their refusal to sign the code, which it said would ease the pressure on the SA's clothing and textile industry. Last year alone, the industry shed about 16,500 jobs through retrenchments, closures and liquidations, the South African...

A further erosion of the 39,000 textile manufacturing jobs created in Kenya during the four years that the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) has been in effect is likely to happen following the expiry last January of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA) that placed quotas on exports from individual countries to the US market.The extent of the losses was to be known last month since most EPZ textile firms confirm orders for the year in April, but the Chinese threat appears to have been overstated, according to Export Processing Zones...

The United States late on Friday re-imposed quotas to curb a flood of Chinese textile imports, a move likely to sharply escalate trade tensions with the Asian giant.Under pressure to preserve thousands of jobs, the US government's Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) said it was re-imposing a quota on three categories of Chinese textiles."Today's action by CITA demonstrates this administration's commitment to levelling the playing field for US industry by enforcing our trade agreements," Commerce Secretary Carlos...

President Festus Mogae and visiting Lesotho Prime Minister, Pakalitha Mosisili have lamented the difficulty of African goods accessing American and European markets because of stiff competition from other continents like Asia.They were addressing a joint press conference at the end of a three-day state visit by Mosisili, who returned home yesterday afternoon.The two said that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has terminated the quota system and treats all countries as equal contrary to the situation on the ground. They said they have sought...

The Angolan ambassador to the USA, Josefina Pitra Diakité, said today, here, that the Angolan businessmen should learn more about the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in order to expand their business and benefit from aid. The diplomat who was speaking at the end of a lecture on business, promoted by the Angola-USA Chamber of Commerce, defended the need for the national private sector to know better the opportunities that AGOA offers to the companies to recover the lost time. According to Josefina Diakite, who moderated the theme...

America’s African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) that gives African exporters duty free access to the US market is under threat.Four months after the World Trade Organisation phased out the international agreement that assigned quarters in the global trade in textiles, it is emerging that increased competition has eroded most of the benefits that exporters enjoyed under Agoa.A number of textile-manufacturing companies in the Export Processing Zones (EPZ) have closed shop leaving 6,000 people jobless.Kenyan exporters have particularly...

Sub-Saharan African textile and garment manufacturers are set to develop a regional trade association in response to heavy competition from low-cost Asian producers in a quota-free global market, an industry insider told IRIN.The idea of the new body was agreed at a Regional Cotton and Textile Executive Summit, held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, last week. The conference was organised by the Regional Agricultural Trade Expansion Programme, a US Agency for International Development-funded project."An interim steering committee has been set...

Kenyan textile firms are feeling the effects of the quota system which was scrapped by the World Trade Organisation in January, according to a new government report.For the last three months 2,000 people have lost jobs while at least six textile companies have closed their doors in the country.The removal of the quota restrictions under the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) 30-year-old Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA) mean that poor African producers are no longer protected from stiff competition that the Asian mass producers pose.The Export...

The antiglobalisers who blame the rise of world brands for every modern ill, including the increase in labour exploitation, should take a close look at the reality of clothing manufacture in southern Africa. Socially responsible sourcing of clothing by big companies in the west may yet help the region weather the pending wave of Chinese clothing exports into the developed world.Labour conditions have changed significantly for the better in southern Africa's apparel industry, much of it driven by the effort and vigilance of big brands such as...