Africa Growth and Opportunity Act: New Path to Africa’s Economic Recovery? (original) (raw)
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Current issues on the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2017
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has successfully supported for the sub-Saharan countries to achieve trade-led economic development on one hand, it has been criticized for the limited method for selecting beneficiaries and its legal instability. After the AGOA was renewed for another ten years in 2015, African countries are facing the new challenges such as AGOA reciprocation and the out-of-cycle eligibility review. Based on the active discussions in the AGOA Forum in 2015 and 2016, this paper examines the future potential structures that are most appropriate for U.S.-African trade and investment relationship. The Institute of Developing Economies (IDE) is a semigovernmental, nonpartisan, nonprofit research institute, founded in 1958. The Institute merged with the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) on July 1, 1998. The Institute conducts basic and comprehensive studies on economic and related affairs in all developing countries and regions, including Asia, the
AFRICA INSIGHT , 2012
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) aims at liberalising trade between Africa and the United States of America (US). Since 1 October 2000 when the Act became effective, the US has annually chronicled the performance of AGOA in a way that gives it a success rating. The assessment is based on an increased volume of trade between the US and Africa. A scrutiny of the so-called success story shows that this has been premised on transactions that were not strictly on AGOA trade items. Because African states have been severely constrained by AGOA conditionalities, they are unable to fully embrace AGOA to make transactions to be judged by trades in core AGOA commodities. This being so, AGOA cannot be said to be doing well. This article evaluates these constraints.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act, exports, and development in Sub-Saharan Africa
2006
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is the flagship of US commercial and development policy with Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper looks at the impact of the trade preferences, the central element of AGOA, on African countries' exports to the US and puts them in the perspective of the development of the region. The paper finds that, while stimulating export diversification in a few countries, AGOA has fallen short of the potential impetus that preferences could otherwise provide African exporters. The impact of AGOA would be enhanced if preferences were extended to all products. This means removing tariff barriers to a range of agricultural products and to textiles and a number of other manufactured goods. There also needs to be a fundamental change in approach to the rules of origin. Given the stage of development and economic size of Sub-Saharan Africa, nonrestrictive rules of origin are crucial. For all countries in Africa, those that have and those that have not benefited from preferences, there are enormous infrastructure weaknesses and often extremely poor policy environments that raise trade costs and push African producers further away from international markets. Effective trade preferences (those with non-restrictive rules of origin) can provide a limited window of opportunity to export while these key barriers to trade are addressed. But dealing with the barriers is the priority.
The AGOA as stepping stone for USA–Africa free trade agreements
Journal of International Trade Law and Policy, 2018
Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to show how the pattern of trade relations between the USA and African countries is gradually shifting toward reciprocity. It therefore demonstrates that the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was conceived to be a building block toward future bilateral trade agreements. Design/methodology/approach-This paper adopts a historical approach to the USA's policy toward Africa in general and in trade matters in particular. It critically reviews the chronology of US involvement in the continent. Findings-Although it was designed as a preferential trade arrangement, AGOA was intended to evolve into reciprocal trade agreements. This is what the USA started doing even prior to the entry into force of the AGOA, by entering into Trade and Investment Framework Agreements with individual countries or blocs. It also transpires that the deployment comes as a response to the European Union which is already engaged in the redefinition of its own trade relations with Africa since 2004. Originality/value-The paper is important in many respects. Not only it is a study of the US practice as preference-granting country, but it is also interested in the typology of trade agreements concluded by the USA in other regions of the world. This is important to indicate and analyze the types of provisions African countries should be expected to face when the time of entering into reciprocal binding trade treaties arrives.
Policy Research Working Papers, 2004
The ability to export clothing products under preferences with liberal rules of origin is the key factor currently determining whether the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has a significant impact on non-oil exporting African countries. At present only a small number of countries receive substantial benefits and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) that do not receive preferences for clothing have yet to see an impact of AGOA on their overall exports. However, the benefits from exporting clothing under AGOA appear fragile in the face of the removal of quotas in the United States on major suppliers, such as China, at the end of 2004, and the planned removal of the liberal rules of origin that allow for the global sourcing of fabrics from least-cost locations. To entrench and enhance the benefits of AGOA, it is important that the scheme be extended over a much longer period, if not made permanent, and the special liberal rules of origin for clothing products be extended considerably beyond 2004. The effective inclusion of textile products and a number of high-duty agricultural products would also help to broaden the range of opportunities for African exporters in the U.S. market. Nevertheless it is important that the opportunities created by AGOA are integrated into a broader framework for promoting trade and that it be recognized that if the opportunities offered by more open trade are to be exploited there must be concerted efforts to improve the environment for investment in countries covered by AGOA.
AFRICAN GROWTH AND OPPORTUNITY ACT (AGOA) AND EXPORT DIVERSIFICATION: AN ANALYSIS
A Journal of the Nigerian Political Science Association, 2020
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is a piece of American legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in May 2000 under George W. Bush's administration. It aims to diversify sub-Saharan African economies; increased access to the U.S. market; and consolidate sound economic policies through the elimination of tariffs on eligible African countries' products entering the U.S. market. The AGOA has gone through series of amendments (AGOA II, III, IV and V). The current AGOA V was renewed from 2015 to 2025 by Barrack Obama's administration. This study, therefore, examined the AGOA policy; and in doing so, Immanuel Wallerstein's World System theory was adopted as theoretical framework. The study relied mainly on secondary source of data. The study revealed that energy related products (crude petroleum, oil and gas) dominate African exports to the U.S. under AGOA; AGOA is U.S. trade weapon against Chinese influence in Africa. The programme inter alia further (re)integrates African economies into global capitalist system thereby deepening the disarticulation, distortion, disruption, of African economies. Furthermore, AGOA is bedeviled with plethora of problems such as capacity constraints and the cost of doing business; infrastructural challenges; economic challenges; institutional issues; the nature of the AGOA legislation; etc. In order to overcome these problems, it is recommended that there is need to reduce the cost of doing business in Africa. AGOA should be integrated into countries' national emergence and development plans; sub-Saharan African countries should restrategise and make AGOA a sub-regional issue; sub-Saharan African should embark on long-term economic growth and development in order to realise robust economic transformation among others.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was signed into law by President Clinton after the consultation of the Congress in May 2000 with the objective of expanding U.S. trade and investment with sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), to stimulate economic growth, to encourage economic integration, and to facilitate sub-Saharan Africa's integration into the global economy. AGOA is a part of the Trade and Development Act of 2000. Also AGOA extends duty-free and quota-free access to over 6,400 products from the Sub-Saharan Africa into the U.S. market and also promotes development and economic cooperation between the U.S. and SSA.