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Combining education with a willingness to work hard, the new Assistant U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) for Africa has made the American dream of upward mobility come true for herself. Now Florizelle Liser is pouring her energies into helping Africans achieve individual and national prosperity through increased exports to the U.S. market, touting self-reliance, discipline and sheer hard work.Speaking in her office next to the White House, Liser told the Washington File January 12 that her family immigrated to New York City from Panama. "I...

The third version of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) seems set to be passed this year in spite of the American presidential elections. This is the view of Ways and Means democrat Rep. Jim McDermott (Wash) who has left his current portfolio to champion the AGOA III Bill as a matter of urgency. While the current African Growth and Opportunity Act will only expire in 2008, African beneficiary countries are urging Congress to act now so that potential investors will feel secure about doing business in the region. If the AGOA III...

At this particular period of time when most African countries are faced with economic difficulties the need to tap the lucrative American market by taking advantage of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows non-quota, duty-free entry of a range of African products such as textiles and leather goods into the US market from countries adhering to open market reforms, is becoming more and more evident. It will be recalled that sometime ago the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) hosted the fourth biennial US-Africa business...

Onegi Obel, the presidential advisor on the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and his assistant, Susan Muhwezi, will today make the case for the trade pact before the House committee on finance.AGOA allows selected African countries quota'duty-free access to the US market.Committee chairman, Maj. Bright Rwamirama on Tuesday told colleagues, "We were supposed to meet them last year before the recess, but they were not readily available. But now, we want to put an end to this business and report to the house," he said.The committee was...

Onegi Obel, the presidential advisor on the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and his assistant, Susan Muhwezi, will today make the case for the trade pact before the House committee on finance.AGOA allows selected African countries quota'duty-free access to the US market.Committee chairman, Maj. Bright Rwamirama on Tuesday told colleagues, "We were supposed to meet them last year before the recess, but they were not readily available. But now, we want to put an end to this business and report to the house," he said.The committee was...

Zambia is hoping to see a significant increase in its exports to the United States under the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).Under AGOA, which was signed into law on 18 May 2000, eligible countries are allowed tariff preferences when exporting to US markets by expanding duty-free benefits to a range of products, from agricultural goods to textiles. It also offers African nations incentives to open up their economies.Zambia was informed last week that it had passed the AGOA annual review and would continue to benefit from tariff...

Downstream textile industries need to be developed so that Zambia can benefit from its eligibility for continued tariff preferences under the Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA), the Ndola Chamber of Commerce (NCC) has said.Speaking in an interview yesterday, NCC chairman Ramesh Patel said the textile industry needed a lot of support to grow.He said Government should also help offset manufacturers' export freight costs from Zambia to ports of exit which were all far away.He said Government could help meet export costs or completely...

A multi-million shilling garment import racket has been exposed at the port of Mombasa.Unscrupulous businessmen have been using the port to import ready-made garments from Far East for re-export to America under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).Five people are in police custody and a container with contraband goods is being detained by the Kenya Revenue Authority at the port, according to Corporate Affairs Manager Lucy Njoe.The interception of the garments follows another incident in which KRA seized two containers after the...

"There's no need to get excited with the announcement that United States President George Bush has declared Zambia eligible for continued tariff preferences under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)" - according to an Editorial in Lusaka, Zambia's The Post newspaper.And Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry public relations officer Conrad Simuchile says Zambia's continued eligibility to AGOA preferences, which was done on an annual basis, signified the country's steady progress towards a market-based economy, free trade,...

Interview with Uganda's Minister Muhwezi on the country's challenges relating to AGOA.QUESTION: Your office is now one year old. Anything to write home about? A: It has been a good and challenging year. We started at the time when a conference on competitiveness was held in Kampala. That is where the President met Kumar (Dewapura), the owner of Tri- Star Sri Lanka. He invited him to start a garment factory here. We helped the investor to establish the factory. This was a success because we were able to export textile exports to the US for...

United States President George Bush has declared Zambia eligible for continued tariff preferences under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry public relations officer Conrad Simuchile confirmed the development yesterday.Simuchile stated that American Ambassador to Zambia, Martin Brennan, communicated the development to commerce minister Dipak Patel.Simuchile said Zambia's continued eligibility to AGOA preferences, which was done on an annual basis, signified the country's steady progress...

With one year left in President Bush's current term, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Charles R. Snyder said his team will be focusing on "finishing business," and maybe taking on one or two new priority projects.At a December 9 meeting with journalists in his State Department office, Snyder cited three priorities that his team hopes to bring to completion this year: peace in Sudan; an expansion of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA); and an increase in the number of African countries that enjoy sovereign...

Swarp Spinning Mills Plc says the firm has benefited indirectly from Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) through its products that have been re-exported from other countries to the United States.Swarp marketing director Ranjit Mistry, said the company exported cotton yarn to various countries like Mauritius and to Western Europe.He said the United States, under the AGOA, had put conditions for countries dealing in clothing to use cotton yarn of African origin.Mr Mistry said countries like Mauritius could only export clothing to the United...

A local thread manufacturer has bagged licensing rights for a key American brand in its efforts to crack the Agoa market.The deal signed last week between Fine Spinners and American & Effird (A&E) will enable the former to sell thread to local garment manufacturers, which sell exclusively to the US under the tariff-free terms of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).A&E, which is the world's second biggest thread manufacturer, is a preferred supplier to some of the leading clothing design houses and apparel makers in the US.Managing...

The US has dropped the Central African Republic (CAR) from its list of countries eligible for tariff preferences under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), the White House said on Tuesday.A proclamation issued by President Bush deleted the CAR, along with Eritrea, from the list of eligible nations because the CAR was "not making continual progress in meeting the requirements" for trade preferences. AGOA was signed into law on 18 May 2000 and was designed by the US to offer incentives to African nations to open up their economies....

In a proclamation issued December 30, President Bush included Angola on a list of countries eligible for trade preferences under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), while dropping the Central African Republic and Eritrea from that list. [note: the Central African Republic regained AGOA eligibility through a Proclamation by US President Barack Obama on 15 December 2016] The Central African Republic and Eritrea, according to the White House document, were cut from the list because they did not meet eligibility...

The president of the United States of America, George W. Bush, released on Tuesday, a statement pointing out Angola as eligible and beneficiary of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), according to a press note of that country's embassy.The document, without outlining any more details, explains that AGOA has increased USA's trade with Sub-Saharian Africa, helping to create thousands of employments and investment in African countries.Click here to view the press release in the AGOA.info news archive.

African countries that make no effort to improve the quality of their products risk being excluded from the US Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, (Agoa) Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI) officials who recently toured the United States were told. Following the tour, two US groups are expected in Nairobi next year. A team from the Black American Chamber will be coming in January and Sir Jim McDermont, one of the initiators of Agoa, will be coming in April to assess Kenya's trade with the US. The 11-member KNCC team,...

In the United States alone, the market for handcrafted articles "is $10 billion a year -- billion with a capital 'B'," U.S. Commerce Department official Molly Williamson told an audience of African artisans, U.S. importers, and U.S. and African government officials at the Smithsonian Institution's Ripley Center during the Third AGOA Forum in Washington in December."There's a strong desire to find the unique, the interesting, the product with a story," said Williamson, who is deputy assistant secretary of commerce for Africa, the Middle East...

While market access is the drumbeat of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), the capacity to trade competitively in the U.S. and global marketplace is really the key to making this trade legislation work for Africa, says Stephen Lande, president of Manchester Trade Ltd. In a December 8 address to the 2003 Private Sector Session of the Third AGOA Forum, Lande, an international trade adviser said, "We spend so much time...talking about market access opportunities...but to put it very simply, unless you have world class, competitive...

ONE determining factor for market access is that each product under AGOA is subject to the normal import rules and regulations.Different United States regulatory agencies are responsible for handling imports into that country with products falling under agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting being subject to inspection by the US department of agriculture (USDA). Food products are subject to random inspection by the Food and Drug Agency (FDA).The US customs is responsible for clearing all imports into the American market and enforcing...

Kenyan coffee has finally been included in the list of local exports to the United States through the African Growth Opportunity Act (Agoa) agreement.Cooperative Development and Marketing minister Peter Njeru Ndwiga announced yesterday that the inclusion was one of the major achievements made by a Kenyan delegation to the US last week.He said that in a major break from tradition, locally produced coffee would now be fully processed, packed and sold to the US under a Kenyan brand name.Previously, local coffee had been auctioned at the Nairobi...

Trade under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, (AGOA), has hit a record N1.53 trillion ($10.2 billion) in the first three quarters of 2003, representing a 59 per cent increase over the same period in 2002.According to information from Nigeria's Public Affairs Section of the United States Embassy, Abuja, the President of the Corporate Council on Africa, Mr. Stephen Hayes said the "runaway success of AGOA has affirmed its place as the cornerstone of US-Africa trade relationship."AGOA was signed into law on May 18, 2000 and offers trade...

On Tuesday, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was meeting with African Trade and Finance ministers in the Executive Office Building next to the White House about the African Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa). "I have a surprise for you," Rice said, and President George W. Bush walked in for an unadvertised discussion.He talked to the group for 15 or 20 minutes and told them that "he would continue his commitment to Agoa," according to one non-African participant who described the session as "a very good, very clear presentation to...

Nigeria's Federal Executive Council (FEC) yesterday came out with six strategies in response to the general belief that Nigeria has not derived much benefit from the Africa Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA). The strategies would also help to reposition and re-engineer the Act.The Minister of Health, Professor Eyitayo Lambo and Minister of State for Finance, Mrs Nenadi Esther Usman, unfolding the strategies while briefing State House Correspondents on the outcome of the FEC meeting, said the FEC has decided to ensure the upgrading of domestic...

"You have to compete, period. Don't identify the Chinese or the Vietnamese as a problem," Constance Hamilton, the senior director for African affairs at the U.S. Trade Representative's Office, said she told African delegates to the third AGOA Forum, meeting in Washington December 9-10.The forum, officially the "United States-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum," took place at the State Department, with complementary concurrent sessions at other venues sponsored by the private sector December 8-9 and the civil society...

Tensions over North-South trade issues emerged in joint presentations on Monday by top Kenyan and American trade officials.The differing views were expressed at a conference in Washington on the future of the African Growth and Opportunity Act.Trade and Industry minister Mukhisa Kituyi and US Trade representative Robert Zoellick agreed in their luncheon speeches that while Agoa had been beneficial to many African countries, improvements could be made to ensure its gains were consolidated and broadened."By any measure, Agoa has been...

The benefits of AGOA are "clear for all to see," the Mauritian Minister of industry and international trade said December 9 as he thanked the United States on the part of all Africans for enacting such historic trade legislation.Speaking at the third United States, Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum on AGOA at the State Department's Loy Henderson Auditorium, Cuttaree said AGOA has increased job creation in Lesotho, Swaziland, Senegal, Uganda and Mozambique and has allowed families to raise their standard of living and to...

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Mauritian Minister of Industry and International Trade Jayen Cuttaree praised the effectiveness of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and called for its enhancement in the form of AGOA III.They made their remarks December 9 as they jointly opened the third meeting of the United States-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum at the State Department's Loy Henderson Auditorium.In his remarks, Powell reiterated President's Bush's strong commitment to Africa and the AGOA process,...

The runaway success of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has affirmed its place as the "cornerstone" of the U.S.-Africa trade relationship, says Stephen Hayes, president of the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA).In the first three quarters of 2003, trade under AGOA amounted to more than $10.2 billion -- a 59 percent increase over the same period last year -- Hayes said December 8 at the opening of the 2003 Private Sector Session of the Third U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum."The significant capital...

There is an undercurrent of growing concern among supporters of the African Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa) about the legislation's future. As key Agoa meetings get underway in Washington, D.C., advocates of the Act - which gives African countries privileged access to U.S. markets - claim there is only weak support in the Bush Administration for extending the measure beyond its present expiration of 2008.On November 25, Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, offered a bill (S. 1900) to...

Kenyan Trade and Industry minister Mukhisa Kituyi will today be a key speaker at a Washington conference on the future of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).The two-day event, in which members of President George W. Bush's cabinet are also taking part, will focus on the provisions of the US preferential trade scheme for Africa that may endanger the economic gains Kenya has made.The US State Department estimates that 30,000 Kenyans hold jobs directly related to the three-year-old initiative. Another 150,000 Kenyans are said to work...

A U.S. congressman says he is proposing legislation that would enable participants in the African Growth and Opportunity Act program to share in the benefits accorded to free trade agreement partners of the United States.America needs to implement a new trade policy -- one that is forward-looking for the 21st Century while being grounded in what's best for people and nations and not what's merely expedient -- Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott told those gathered at the 2003 Private Sector Session of the Third U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade...

America needs to implement a new trade policy like AGOA III -- one that is forward-looking for the 21st Century while being grounded in what's best for people and nations and not what's merely expedient -- Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott told those gathered at the 2003 Private Sector Session of the Third U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum.Speaking December 8 to an audience of ambassadors, ministers and business executives in Washington, McDermott said: "We need to practice international trade policy for a new...

The US government confirmed yesterday that ministers from 38 African countries will gather in Washington DC next week, for trade meeting.Imports to the US from African countries, excluding oil, jumped 50% last year, and in South Africa, sub-Sahara's most important economy, exports of automobiles have increased sixteenfold in the past two years.In Lesotho, new export-oriented garment factories have created 25 000 jobs - and for the first time in its history, private sector manufacturing employment, thanks to trade, exceeds government...

Last week, Rosa Whitaker, the Ugandan Government's American consultant on benefiting from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), disclosed some encouraging news.A new bill is before the US Congress seeking to extend trade concessions for selected African countries involved in the exports of textiles/garments to the US.Originally, the US only gave these countries up to 2005 to enjoy the duty/quota-free protection under AGOA. The proposed changes seek to push this peroid to 2015.Central to this proposal is that many investors say it is...

Despite the promises of virtually unlimited duty-free access to the United States market for apparels made in sub-Saharan Africa under the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), textile companies in Nigeria are yet to take full advantage by exporting their products to that market.At a one-day seminar entitled, "International Trade: Updates and Opportunities," Ezekiel Onaolapo Okeniyi, the Customs Area Controller at Seme border, Badagry, noted that Nigeria has not taken full advantage of AGOA.According to him, recent studies in textiles...

The African Growth and Opportunity Act III (Agoa III) was introduced into the US senate and house of representatives late last week, bringing it closer to be signed into law and ensuring long-term trade benefits for South African companies.If passed, the amendments to the partnership with more than 35 sub-Saharan countries, originally signed into law by former president Bill Clinton in 2000, will extend the deadline for preferential trade benefits from 2008 until at least 2015.Agoa's favourable trade benefits were extended in Agoa II last...

Countries belonging to the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), namely South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland steadily increased their exports to the US under AGOA for the year to September 2003. This is according to the latest trade data - denominated in US $ - released by the United States International Trade Commission (USITC). All five countries are AGOA-beneficiaries, and each has qualified under the “apparel provisions” which grants preferential market access also to garment exports.In terms of overall exports...

Trade liberalisation is not an end in itself, commerce, trade and industry minister Dipak Patel has said.In a speech read for him by his deputy Eugene Appel at the opening of the 16th Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) intergovernmental committee of experts in Lusaka yesterday, Patel said trade liberalisation must be looked at as a means to sustainable development through investment.Patel said it was encouraging that national and regional consultations were undertaken towards the creation of a COMESA Common Investment...

Manufacturers and exporters have been urged to work towards efficient expertise so as to ensure quality of finishing and acceptable packaging of products under AGOA.The presidential adviser on AGOA, Mrs. Modupe Sasore, stated this in a paper presented at the 2003 annual seminar/luncheon of the small and medium scale enterprises/distributive trade group of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Lagos.She disclosed that the responsibilities of manufacturers and exporters under AGOA include the ability to deliver orders (usually large...