Pretoria | Monday
US Trade representative Robert Zoellick has announced grants totalling $8,7-million to help boost southern Africa’s capacity for international trade, the US embassy in Pretoria said on Sunday.
Zoellick met with ministers and diplomats of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (Sadc) on Saturday.
He informed Sadc ministers of three US initiatives under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), signed into law by Bill Clinton in May 2000.
These included a three million dollar package over three years to support regional integration plans and link nation-states to the Agoa.
Next was “a $2,7-million package over two years … on customs reform and trade facilitation,” Zoellick said.
“We hope that we can do this in a way that helps your own regional integration as well as link you to the world economy.”
A further three million dollar grant over two years will help local food producers to meet US and European Union health standards. Accompanied by officials of the US Agency for International Development, Zoellick added that USAid would grant scholarships to one trade official from each Sadc country to take part in an information course on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva.
The US capacity-building efforts target individual countries as well as regional groupings, he said, detailing policy on agriculture, anti-dumping, environment competition policy, health, intellectual property and human resources.
Zoellick has been to Kenya and was due on Wednesday to leave for Botswana to assess HIV/Aids research and treatment there. Saturday’s meeting gathered representatives from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia, said US public affairs officer Judy Moon on Sunday.
Malawi’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Peter Kaleso hailed US cooperation on social and political development as vital as trade. While thanking Zoellick for “encouraging words”, Kaleso said SADC remained concerned over the future of the Agoa after its first phase and the special concessions it accords to least developed countries. He asked Washington to review the “four-year window” opened by Agoa until 2004 to build capacity in domains such as textiles and clothing. Some countries were awaiting export visa approval and needed to know “what becomes of Agoa itself” in the long term.
Sadc executive secretary Prego Ramsany, said countries in the region were still positioning themselves to work with the EU and in the WTO, as well as the US, echoed the caution.
Ramsany expected Sadc member states to “liberalise 85% of our trade” by 2008, but warned that the remaining 15%, covering unspecified “sensitive products”, would take until 2012. – AFP