United States Trade Representative (Washington, DC)
2 November 2009
press release
U.S. trade and development officials held in-depth discussions today with officials from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) to review progress on their work together under the U.S.-COMESA Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). This was the sixth high-level meeting under the TIFA, which provides a forum for advancing cooperation on trade and investment issues between the United States and COMESA.
Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Africa Florizelle Liser and COMESA Secretary-General Sindiso Ngwenya co-chaired the day-long meeting, which examined collaborative efforts such as work on implementation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), cooperation in the World Trade Organization, trade capacity building, and issues related to biotechnology, investment, and the business environment. The two sides also discussed aspects of the Obama Administration’s unfolding plans for promoting global food security, especially how these efforts might best promote greater regional agricultural trade in the COMESA region.
“COMESA has been a leader in sub-Saharan Africa in advancing regional economic integration and greater intra-African trade,” said Liser. “COMESA is an important partner on trade and development issues, and the U.S. Government has supported its efforts to create a unified regional market among its members and to use trade to bolster economic development. Today’s meeting provided an opportunity to review our progress on issues such as AGOA and two-way trade and investment, as well as to deepen our partnership on increasingly important topics such as biotechnology development and trade policies and the trade-related aspects of food security.”
In addition to officials from USTR, the U.S. delegation to the meeting in Lusaka included U.S. Ambassador to Zambia Donald Booth, who is also the U.S. Special Representative to COMESA, and officials from the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
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