|
AGOA now or else
-
Kyerematen
Accra, July 16, GNA Mr. Alan Kyerematen, Outgoing Minister
of Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and PSI, on
Monday urged African countries to take advantage of the
Africa Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) now, saying that
it would not remain open forever.
Let us remember that AGOA will not remain open to Africa
forever, he said.
Mr. Kyerematen made the call when he opened the First
Experts Meeting of the African Ministerial Consultative
Group on AGOA.
AGOA is an initiative by the United States government to
enable some selected African countries based on some
criteria to export over 6,400 locally manufactured products
to the US market on tariff-free and quota-free basis.
AGOA was passed into law in 2000 and its benefits ran into
trillions of dollars for eligible African countries,
provided they take full advantage of it.
The four-day meeting in Accra is under that theme: As Trade
Grows, Africa Prospers: Optimising the Benefits under AGOA.
Unlike previous AGOA meetings in Dakar and in Washington DC,
the Accra meeting is open to not only state actors and
private sector representatives from eligible African
countries and from the US, but also to civil society
organisations.
Mr. Kyerematen noted that even though AGOA had been a law
since 2000, its impact on African countries was still
insignificant due to the lack of strategic focus on the kind
of policy, legal, institutional and support framework to
assist the private sector to produce on competitive basis.
The progress made on AGOA in several countries is
regrettably slow, he said.
He noted that most African countries continued to depend on
a few export commodities and were therefore yet to identify
the comparative or competitive advantage they had within the
diversified product range under AGOA.
Mr. Kyerematen said the need for eligible African countries
to up their act and take full advantage of AGOA would
require the efforts of all stakeholders within the
individual countries.
He added that non-eligible countries should also work their
way into eligibility to ensure that the continent grew as a
whole.
Meanwhile, some civil society organisations have raised some
critical issues about the AGOA, with respect to the range of
products it covers and therefore declared their intention to
demand an expansion in the product coverage range.
GNA
|
