The US Trade Representative that oversees the country’s trade policy with the rest of the world says the current United States administration wants a seamless renewal of the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA).
Ambassador Michael Froman was speaking at the Washington-based think-tank, The Brookings Institution, which has just released a report suggesting certain recommendations for policymakers, including extending AGOA beyond 2015 when it’s due to expire.
The Brookings report is an empirical analysis of the possibilities post-2015 and calls AGOA one of the defining characteristics of the trade and commercial relationship between Africa and the United States.
Critically it argues that without an extension, there will be declines in African exports, economic diversification and employment for many eligible countries. Trade Representative, Michael Froman, was speaking ahead of his departure to the AGOA forum in Addis Ababa next week: “We want to see the seamless renewal of AGOA and we know how important that is to people making investment decisions to know in advance whether they’ll still benefit from those preferences and preferential access to the US market, plays a key role in whether they maintain their investments and add to them so we want to make sure there’s a seamless renewal.”
He says they’ve already started working with certain interested members of congress, who will ultimately have to renew the legislation once the White House is ready to resubmit it. But much needs to happen before that: “We have a little over two years now before AGOA expires, we want to use this period to really look at the successes of AGOA but also ways it can be improved, also look at the changes on the continent, the changing economic relationships and trade relationships that have developed between Africa and other economic partners around the world and see what kind of changes we want to make to AGOA before working with Congress and obviously Congress plays the critical role here in figuring what kind of AGOA we want to renew.”
The Brookings report back an assessment by Froman who described the current trade relationship with Africa as good but one that could be much more substantial, sighting a lack of greater regional and custom’s integration that makes trading with Africa that much more difficult. He also welcomed interest from other countries in the continent, including China: “The question for Africa is what kind of trade and investment relationships do they want to have, it’s up to them, with outside partners and ensuring that it works for them. And we’re very much confidence because as we travel around Africa as I did last year to a number of countries and back again this year, as much as the Chinese are there, they want Americans to be there as well. Because they know that our companies bring technology, management training. That they hire locally, that they like to build local capacity.”
Governance will also continue to be a factor as to which countries in sub Saharan Africa are eligible for the programme moving forward. This years AGOA forum in Ethiopia, will look at Sustainable Transformation through Trade and Technology. – SABC