BuaNews (Tshwane)
19 July 2007
Accra — Ghana's head of state has urged private sector operators from the United States to increase their investments in Africa beyond the extractive industries of oil and precious minerals.
Addressing the Sixth African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum Wednesday, President John Agyekum Kufuor identified agriculture, processing, manufacturing and tourism as some key areas that they could put their money into.
This, said Mr Kufuor, would assist in technology transfer and build the continent's capacity to become more competitive and effective partners in trade.
Additionally, investors chould also look at the re-location of industries and outsourcing Information Communication Technology (ICT) contracts to the region, he told the three-day forum.
The meeting is also providing a platform for trade ministers from 39 AGOA-qualified countries in sub-Saharan Africa, representatives of the private sector, civil society groups and US officials to discuss ways of increasing US-Africa trade.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act is a US Trade Act that enhances US market access for 39 Sub-Saharan African countries.
The Act originally covered the period from October 2000 to September 2008, but amendments signed into law by President George w. Bush in July 2004 further extended AGOA to 2015.
The theme for this year's AGOA Forum is: "As Trade Grows, Africa Prospers: Optimizing the Benefits Under AGOA."
AGOA opens up the US market to eligible countries to export more than 6,400 duty-free and quotation-free products, estimated at more than 10 trillion USD without reciprocity.
Imports from Africa under this initiative totalled 44.2 billion USD last year, a five-fold increase over 2001, when the programme began. The increase involved mostly crude oil and apparel exports.
The programme ends in 2015 and this, President Kufuor said, must be extended by five years to give Africa space to take full advantage of the opportunity.
"Given the time constraint and the very serious capacity challenges, we must admit, Africa can hardly exploit the benefits of this huge initiative anywhere to the full.
"I will therefore appeal, first to the US Government to extend the time of AGOA to 20 years, then to the countries in Africa as well as our development partners in the US to design and implement a specific and efficacious vehicle targeted at empowering African nations in terms of capacity building."
President Kufuor said AGOA benefits must not be seen only from the perspective of the African.
He quoted the statement made by President Bush, while signing the AGOA Acceleration Act in 2004 that, "When America sells to Africa, it means employment for somebody in America" and said the programme, should therefore work both ways to everyone's advantage.
The Head of the US Delegation, Susan Schwab, said the US was determined to serve as a strategic partner with Africa and would not stop, until the continent has realised its enormous potentials.
She noted that if the region could increase its share of the global trade, which stands at two per cent, by a single percentage, it would be generating 70 billion USD annually.
This would be about three times the amount of development assistance it has been receiving.
Ms Schwab spoke of the need for enhanced intra-African trade and South-South trading and re-affirmed the US commitment to reducing agricultural trade distortions.
Ms Schwab, who is the Trade Adviser to President Bush, described the future of Africa as full of hope saying, there was now a new breed of political leaders who were determined to turn the economic fortunes of the continent around. - BuaNews-NNN
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