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Uganda urges US govt. to relax rules of origin under AGOA

More than 15 years after it signed up to the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) but fell short on exploiting the quotas, Uganda now feels that relaxing the country’s trade rules could possibly boost exports under the program. Uganda's minister of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Amelia Kyambadde wants the US government to relax rules of origin (ROO) under AGOA and expand the list of eligible products allowed under the program. The minster attributes Uganda's poor performance under the AGOA to the strict ROO.

She feels, the current arrangement is that a value addition level of 35 per cent must be attained on products whose inputs are imported from non- AGOA (countries in order to export them under the AGOA. The threshold of 35 per cent on value addition is very high for an LDC country like Uganda. She was recently speaking after meeting the US ambassador to Uganda, Deborah Malac, on the upcoming annual review for AGOA. The review for annual review of the performance of AGOA is scheduled for September this year.

Uganda is one of the beneficiaries of Agoa that provides for duty-free treatment for about 6,500 goods from eligible sub-Saharan African countries imported into the US market. The country’s exports to the US under AGOA include agricultural products, forest products, textiles and apparel, foot-wear, and minerals and metals. Uganda's main export has been textiles and apparel. Kyambadde says, Uganda's export under Agoa dropped from $3.3m in 2010 to $1.15 million in 2014. She attributed this poor performance to the limited list of eligible products for export to the US market under AGOA.

 
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