Commerce, Trade and Industry Minister Felix Mutati has said pleas to extend the mandate of the Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) should be driven by objectives.
Mr. Mutati told Journalist in Lusaka today that there is need for predictability in AGOA activities in order to set performance benchmarks that can help make the country competitive to trade with the US markets.
He urged AGOA eligible countries to set targets for exporting to the American markets ahead of the forthcoming AGOA conference slated for June 9th to 10th 2011 in Lusaka.
“Our current export to the US market as a country in terms of agricultural produce amounts to only one percent so there is need to set a target of 10 percent within the next four years in order to increase our export to the US,” he said.
He said it was important to avoid past mistakes where markets were opened to African countries before they became competitive.
Mr. Mutati said it was imperative that to return to the original concept of AGOA where more emphasis was put on enhancing Africa’s competitiveness to trade with markets such as the US before trading with such market giants were opened.
He said the extension of AGOA should be driven by objectives set to help enhance Africa’s competitiveness to trade with the US.
The minister also stressed the need to create capacity in both local and regional exporters to increase the benefits of the AGOA forum because the volume of goods required to export to the US market is huge.
And Mr. Mutati said Zambia has made headways in preparing to host the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) conference.
Mr. Mutati said the United States (US) team that visited the country to evaluate the country’s preparedness to host the event were impressed with how prepared Zambia is to stage the AGOA conference.
He expressed optimism that Zambia will host a very successful conference that will impact positively on the country’s capacity to trade with renowned markets such as the US and European markets.
Four American government ministers and a 3, 000 American delegation is expected to accompany US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) conference to be hosted by Zambia from the June 9th to 10th.
ZANIS
This is one of the few MMD guys who work, others are busy booklicking !!
Chituwo and Mutati are the only morally upright, politicians that wretched party has !!
No.1
Include Machila on the list of MMD ministers who work. The rest are just dogs of RB!
Mwebantu imwe the insults are too much. Why too much anger and bitterness against the poor politicians who are trying very hard to feed you, educate you and ensure that you have good health. Kwena mwatumpa na bakamilalike insala mukacenjele. How can you insult your Head of State who is supposed to be a honourable person. You satanists!!
Dude you comments, ease up. Are you one that’s why you feel so comfortable calling other people satanists?
This thing of thinking fellow AGOA eligible countries are our partners is so naive. We’re under intense competition from these ‘partners’, and the docile ones (mainly in Africa) just keep us down with them. What we need if not too late is set up a specialized entity or marketing board for effective response to the opened market…target specific firms, farms, cooperations and other entities that have some product of interest under AGOA….guide them to improve quality and productivity. China and India did them same without even an act such as the AGOA and it worked. It sure can work for us as well. Just thinking…