South Africa welcomes U.S. House approval of Africa trade programme renewal

South Africa’s government welcomed the approval by the U.S. House of Representatives of a bill that would renew Washington’s preferential trade programme for Africa for another three years.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a law first enacted in 2000 to provide duty-free access to the U.S. market for eligible Sub-Saharan countries and products, expired in September and hundreds of thousands of African jobs are estimated to depend on it.

South Africa’s trade minister Parks Tau said in a statement that renewing AGOA would “provide certainty and predictability for African and American businesses that rely on the programme”.

Source: Reuters