Rob Davies will try again soon to get the US to stick to Agoa deal
The African Growth and Opportunity Act is a nonreciprocal preferential trade programme the US offers to about 50 sub-Saharan African countries
Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies will meet US representatives soon in a bid to secure SA’s preferential trade benefits under the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa)Department of Trade and Industry director-general Lionel October says the next meeting is in about 10 days’ time."We made a compromise, we opened up a bit to poultry in exchange for continued market access under Agoa. Now the US is undoing that deal we had. We are going to keep pushing. We must do it simultaneously. While we try to maintain our access, we’re working with industry to diversify our trade," he said on the sidelines of the second day of the Manufacturing Indaba in Sandton.SA has been caught in the crossfire in a bruising trade war between the US and China, which has already knocked emerging-market currencies. The rand has plunged to levels last seen during the Jacob Zuma administration.Former US president Barack Obama extended the Agoa agreement, which was set to expire in September 2015, to 20...
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