AGOA eligible countries to reap benefits-— Through product diversification, capacity building

Story:Boahene Asamoah & Lucy Adoma Yeboah
ELIGIBLE countries under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) have resolved to diversify their products and strengthen capacity building programmes to ensure that they benefited fully from the initiative.
They have also called on the private sector of the United States to invest in eligible countries and that access to finance by small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) should be enhanced to ensure their participation in the initiative.
This was contained in a report delivered by Ghana’s Ambassador to the United States, Mr A.Y. Adusie, at the ongoing AGOA conference in Accra yesterday.
The report, which outlined a 22-point strategic framework for accelerating the implementation lines under the AGOA came from the Experts Meeting of the African Ministerial Consultative Group held on Monday.
The report, among other things, recommend that member countries should endeavour to formulate national trade policies that would take full advantage of the initiative, Mr Adusie said.
The group, he said, also recommended the strengthening of regional integration and the need to create the necessary infrastructure to ensure competitiveness of products from the sub-region.
The ambassador said it was also agreed that the United States (US) complimented efforts at ensuring skills training and provide technological assistance to enhance the products of AGOA eligible countries.
Making presentations on the regional deliberations, Mr Adusie observed that the regional groupings which were made up of western, central, southern, eastern and northern African countries faced similar challenges which affected their desire to take full advantage of AGOA.
He named some of the issues as low supply to meet the large demand of the US market, the stringent product requirements, high transportation cost, funding and the ability to obtain visas.
He said eligible countries also had acknowledged the need to develop exportable quantities of products to which they would add value.
“In the horticultural sector, there is the need to develop a niche market and also to diversify products,” Mr Adusie stated, and called for strong partnership among cotton producing countries.
The ambassador said that in southern Africa, the issues were how to diversify products, develop and harmonise standards, create awareness as well as develop cross border infrastructure.
In his welcoming address, the out-going Minister of Trade, Industries, Private Sector and President’s Special Initiatives (PSIs), Mr Alan Kyerematen, said AGOA had not conferred any automatic benefits on any country but looked out for those that produced quality products and could supply in time.
He said there was, therefore, the need for individual countries to institute appropriate national strategies to enable producers to come out with the best for the US market.
Mr Kyerematen observed that Africa was yet to fully benefit from the world market since the continent attracted only two per cent of the world market.
He, therefore, advised African countries to take the AGOA initiative seriously since the opportunity for them to export 6,400 products duty- and quota-free to the United States (US) was enough to push them higher on the international market.
Mr Kyerematen took the opportunity to welcome Liberia and Mauritania who recently became AGOA eligible countries.