Sub-Saharan African countries are gathering momentum to come to Addis Ababa for African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum promoting "Sustainable transformation through Trade and Technology". This is the 12th AGOA forum.

Though the Act has been put in place for over a decade, many African countries are not benefiting as much as it allows them to; Ethiopia is one of those countries that hasn't benefited from the opportunity as much as it could be.

Monday saw an event organized by Ethiopian government and AU in connection to the upcoming AGOA Forum to happen as of August 12-13, 2013.

Yet Ministry of Trade says it is working to enable Ethiopia make most of the opportunity. Reports indicate the situation with many African countries is all similar to Ethiopia.

State Minister Yakob Yala conceded his country doesn't exploit the opportunity as much as it is possible. But as for him, the development in the ago-manufacturing has made real progress due to the act not withstanding poor competitiveness of Ethiopian products.

Donald Booth, American Ambassador to Addis Ababa, said Lesotho and Mauritius are two countries doing well in terms of using the AGOA opportunity. He added, though countries like Ethiopia improves in benefiting from the act, they have still a long way to go make the most of it.

African Union representative said the Commission is making efforts to help woman benefit from the Act as women are half of the African population. According to our staff reporter, Getu Lakew, the African Growth and Opportunity Act was enacted in 2000 and allows 39 eligible African countries to export most products duty-free to the United States.