Zambian products eligible for AGOA export

US-Zambia Business

With James Muyanwa
AS promised, this week we look at the products which are eligible for export by African countries, including Zambia, to the United States of America under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

My quick glance at the list of the United States of America (USA) imports - for any period -under the Act shows 12 packs of the eligible products from Africa.

Relatively, out of the 12 categories of the products, Zambia has a comparative advantage in the agriculture products as well as minerals and metal products.

AGOA extended duty-free treatment under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) to AGOA-eligible countries like Zambia for more than 1,800 tariff line items. This was an addition to the list of approximately 4,600 GSP items which were already available to GSP beneficiary countries.

Therefore, there are currently about 6,400 products from the African AGOA-member countries which are eligible for duty-free treatment. The additional GSP line items include such previously excluded items as footwear, luggage, handbags, watches and certain automotive components.

Apart from agriculture products, they are categorised under forest products which is also Zambia’s strong area, chemicals and related products, energy-related products in which Nigeria and Angola are leading exporters, as well as textiles and apparel.

Other groups are footwear, minerals and metals, another Zambia’s domain, machinery, transportation equipment, electronic products, miscellaneous manufactures and special provisions.

Admittedly, the list is too condensed and therefore does not clearly specify the products, but it should also be appreciated that there are a total of 6,400 single items which, if I were to list all of them for instance, would cover more than six weeks.

I would, therefore, only look at the products in the categories where exporters in this country have an advantage and agriculture as already been alluded to is one such sector.

According to the Africa Regional Services (ARS Paris), a primary source of French language program materials for American Cultural Centres at US Embassies for francophone Africa, cereals like barley, different kinds of rice and wheat are in the agriculture category.

Closely related to that, are the many varieties of vagetables.

Further on demand in the USA are a catalogue of fruits like water melon, pineaples and paw-paw as well as their preparations. Zambians can also export speficified plants or trees which include the floriculture products.

Zambian timber producers and exporters should also take advantage of the demand for wood and wood products like clothespins, coniferous wood dowel rods, plywood, spring-type clothespins, wood blinds, shutters, screens and shades as well as wood wool.

Under minerals and metals category USA imports copper, Zinc, base metal fittings, padlocks, cobalt alloy, magnesium, molybdenum, columbium, thallium, titanium, tungsten, bars, tungsten, vanadium and zirconium.

Then there are scores of items in the iron and steel products category. The opportunities are simply yawning for those who want to export to the US under the arrangement.

In the main, AGOA authorizes the US President to provide duty-free treatment under GSP for any item, after the USTrade Representative (USTR) and the US International Trade Commission (USITC) have resolved that the article is not import-sensitive when coming from African countries.

While AGOA extends duty-free entry into the USA for approximately 4600 product lines to the 37 AGOA-eligible Sub-Sahara African countries, a special set of conditions governs the trade in apparel.

AGOA eligibility does not automatically imply compliance with the apparel export provisions and the relevant rules of original which will be tackled later.

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During the week I received a call from a Mr Simwinga of Copperbelt who wanted to know more about Kanzam International and how it operates in linking up the investors from USA and Zambia. Mr Simwinga further wanted to know if Kanzam International charges for its services or not.

I will, however, not delve into answering Mr Simwinga because a full column will be dedicated to look at such issues and explore more the operation of Kanzam International. Look out for the column next when I come back with another topic.

Kindly send your contributions to: jmuyanwa@gmail.com, call: 021(0955) 431442 or AGOA@kanzamint.com or call +1(214) 245-4371