The African Growth and Opportunity Act, which has significantly contributed to enhancing trade and investment in sub-Saharan Africa with the United States of America, provides for duty and quota free access to American markets.
Many qualifying African countries have achieved notable successes in exporting goods under AGOA to the US. These successes include textiles and apparel from Kenya, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Ghana, and Madagascar, according to Businessday.
The sales in Kenya for example, dominated by apparel under AGOA, have grown from US$55 million in 2001 to US$603 million in 2022, constituting 67.6 per cent of the country’s total exports to the US, according to World Economic Forum data.
Kenya is the second-largest exporter of textile and apparel products to the United States among AGOA beneficiaries.
In addition, AGOA data shows that Kenya will get $55 million from the US to expand its export processing zones in order to increase Nairobi’s apparel exports.
This disclosure was made by the US initiative Prosper Africa and the US Embassy during the launch of the US-Kenya Business Roadshow on April 25, 2023, in New York. This funding commitment is in line with the commitments made by President Joe Biden at the US Africa Leaders Summit last year.
US Ambassador to Kenya, Meg Whitman, has expressed enthusiasm about working with the Prosper Africa initiative in order to encourage investment not only in Kenya but also across African countries.
Enacted in 2000 by the United States, Agoa was designed to promote economic development in sub-Saharan Africa by facilitating trade and investment. One of its key provisions was to provide duty-free access to the US market for eligible African countries, including Nigeria, for a wide range of products, including textiles and apparel.
AGOA provides eligible sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to the U.S. market for over 1,800 products, in addition to the more than 5,000 products that are eligible for duty-free access under the Generalised System of Preferences programme.
