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Rice, in Africa, renews commitment to trade deal

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 09:33 CDT

By Alistair Thomson

DAKAR (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used her first trip to Africa on Wednesday to show top level commitment to a U.S. preferential trade deal for the poorest continent.

On a trip set to be dominated by efforts to stem bloodshed in the Middle East and Sudan's Darfur, Rice renewed Washington's backing for its African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) at a meeting with the 37 eligible countries in Dakar, Senegal.

"Development assistance can be catalytic. But it alone will never enable people to lift themselves out of poverty. Open markets that allow individuals to realize the benefits of their own hard work are essential," Rice told the meeting.

"AGOA benefits everyone. Africa businesses create more, better-paying jobs. And American consumers receive more goods at lower prices -- products like sorbet from South Africa, woodcarvings from Tanzania, and tuna from right here in Senegal," she said.

AGOA's critics say the program primarily provides cheap, tariff-free fuel to U.S. consumers. Out of more than $26 billion worth of AGOA exports in 2004, all but $3.5 billion were oil-related.

Rice noted projects announced this week to increase the share of non-oil AGOA exports, including a $200 million, five-year African Global Competitiveness Initiative.

She said the initiative would involve setting up a fourth "trade hub" office in Dakar to add to those already established in Botswana, Ghana and Kenya to promote trade with the United States by providing information to potential trading partners on both sides of the Atlantic.

TRADE TALKS CAST SHADOW

The Dakar meeting has focused on broadening the scope of AGOA, which sees a tiny minority of the 6,000 eligible products exported in any significant quantity.

It has also given U.S. trade officials a chance to talk to their African counterparts about the commitments made by the Group of Eight rich nations earlier in July to end agricultural subsidies.

That announcement was met with skepticism in much of Africa as there was no timetable for tearing down subsidies that many say keep U.S. farmers in business while skewing world markets and driving down or even wiping out earnings of poor Africans.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns made clear that any broad abolition of subsidies to U.S. farmers would have to wait until the conclusion of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks.

A WTO meeting in Hong Kong in December is meant to produce a more precise consensus on achieving free global trade under the Doha round of negotiations, due to end by late 2006.

"Everyone recognizes that we can't afford to fail," U.S. Assistant Trade Representative for Africa Florizelle Liser told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

"This is not our last chance, but it is our one big chance."

Source: REUTERS

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