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The cornerstone of U.S. economic relations with sub-Saharan Africa since 2000 has been the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA. The program offers more than three dozen participants preferential access to U.S. markets by eliminating import tariffs. Policymakers hoped that AGOA, as the primary U.S. trade policy for the region, would foster economic and political development in Africa. However, the outsized role of oil and apparel in African export growth has raised questions about whether AGOA can diversify the region’s economies...

Nigerian exporters in the non oil sector can actually take Nigeria out of the wood and earn billions of dollars exporting goods to America through the full utilisation of African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Though AGOA programme has been on for the past 16 years, Nigeria has never taken full advantage of the potentials due to its over reliance on oil while other Africans are turning around their economy with this programme. The AGOA project initiated by the United States of America in 2000 was to help develop trade and facilitate...

An American business expert, Fred Oladehinde, says Nigeria can generate four million jobs annually through the African Growth and Opportunity Act, if it invests in the development of its Micro Small and Micro Enterprises sector. Oladehinde, the President of the Foundation for Democracy in Africa, a Washington DC-based NGO, said this on Wednesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja. The AGOA scheme was initiated by the United States Government in May 2000 to assist the economies of sub-Saharan Africa and to improve...

President Paul Kagame has shared tactics Rwanda applies to lure investors during the Corporate Council on Africa Presidential Dialogue on the Future of US-Africa Business. The dialogue brought together CEOs, decision makers and heads of State who trade with United States of America. Rwanda participated in the meeting because it is part of African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a United States Trade Act. Selected products from countries under AGOA receive duty-free treatment in US according to an Annual Product Review of June 2016. At...

The US has set new annual limits on duty and quota-free imports of apparel articles assembled from regional and third-country fabric under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in the upcoming fiscal year. The new figures are released by the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) for the year from 1 October 2017 to 30 September 2018. For apparel articles wholly assembled in one or more beneficiary sub-Saharan African countries from fabric wholly formed in one or more beneficiary countries from yarn...

South Africa’s trade deal with the US, under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), may have its benefits, however, overall it is heavily skewed in favour of the US. South Africa’s strategy of pursuing a “developmental trade” policy, in which trade agreements with other countries should promote growth, employment and the industrial upgrade of the country, are frequently undermined by unequal global trade rules, markets and power which favour industrialised countries. The terms of Agoa reflect the unequal global trade rules,...

On September 14, the USAID East African Trade and Investment Hub held a Kenya Flower Stakeholders Workshop in Nairobi, Kenya to discuss U.S. market opportunities for Kenyan floriculture exporters. A total of 50 floriculture value chain stakeholders attended the meeting. Stakeholder comments from the meeting will inform the ongoing Kenya National AGOA Strategy review and the Kenya Flower Council USA market promotion action plan. The Senior Deputy Permanent Secretary for Kenya’s Department of Trade, Mr. Samson Wangusi, opened the meeting...

Speech by Thomas A. Shannon, Jr., Under Secretary for Political Affairs, U.S. Institute of Peace, Washington, DC September 13, 2017 Introduction Good morning. Thank you President Lindborg for your very kind and generous introduction. To you and to Ambassador Carson I am grateful for the invitation to participate in this important and timely symposium. It is always a pleasure to cross 23rd street and leave behind the 1950s federal architecture of the State Department for the soaring beauty of the United States...