The African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA )
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is a United States Trade Act, enacted on 18 May 2000 as Public Law 106 of the 200th Congress. AGOA has since been renewed to 2025. The legislation significantly enhances market access to the US for qualifying Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries.Qualification for AGOA preferences is based on a set of conditions contained in the AGOA legislation.
AGOA builds on existing US trade programs by expanding the (duty-free) benefits previously available only under the country’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) program.
Duty-free access to the U.S. market under the combined AGOA/GSP program stands at approximately 6,500 product tariff lines, including the tariff lines that were added by the AGOA legislation. Notably, these newly added “AGOA products” include items such as apparel and footwear, wine, certain motor vehicle components, a variety of agricultural products, chemicals, steel and many others
The new window may have re-opened vista for Nigeria and other countries in the region to grow their present $4.8 billion worth of non-oil exports to the U.S. to over $8 billion within the next 10 years, under the extended trade deal.
Essentially, under the programme’s extended regime, African countries would be engaged in the rules of origin to engender value-addition of raw materials as they could now include the cost of direct processing, as they share production from one country to another on their way to the U.S. market.
Furthermore, African countries exporting to the U.S. can also use the programme across borders, thereby stimulating intra-African trade in regional markets, where value may be further added to export products.
Hitherto, processed cassava grains, popularly called “garri” is processed in Nigeria but packaged in Ghana for acceptability. Under the new regime, exporters of such products can enjoy the cost of direct processing with the rules of origin.
Nigerian Garri on Amazon and other online platform
