Browsing by Subject "AGOA"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    An analysis of South Africa exports to the United States under the African Growth Opportunity Act
    (2015) Chinembiri, Evans Wally Kudzai; Hartzenberg, Trudi
    The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is a unilateral trade policy concession governing United States - Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) trade and investment relations. AGOA provides United States market access for 40 SSA countries, including South Africa. This piece of legislation has the fundamental objective of facilitating the global integration of SSA countries into the world economy by extending preferential access to the United States market for exporters from eligible countries. Over the past decade, AGOA has emerged as a topical issue as scholars and policy makers sought to understand its impact on SSA, especially South Africa. This has been awarded more impetus given its pending expiration in 2015. This, naturally, raised questions about the performance of United States preference programs (such as AGOA) as part of a larger ongoing debate on the form that United States preference programs may take in the foreseeable future. With South Africa facing a serious opposition to inclusion in the next shape of AGOA given the number of trade agreements South Africa has signed with countries that are competitors to United States in certain product categories. This study will seek to highlight the importance of the AGOA dispensation to South Africa, and through that analysis make a case for the continued inclusion of South Africa in the future trade dispensations that may develop. This study focuses on two research objectives; firstly, the study seeks to assess the extent to which increased preferential access to the United States market has translated into a real and tangible increase in exports from South Africa to the United States. Secondly, the study seeks to identify the areas where South Africa and the United States have high trade potential, and help make a case for inclusion of these high potential trade products in the next iteration of the AGOA dispensation. In achieving the first research objective, the study carried out a detailed trade statistics analysis with the hope of gaining greater understanding of the extent to which AGOA has influenced trade patterns between the United States and South Africa. South Africa's trade figures show that the United States is an important trade partner. A key conclusion that can be drawn from the analysis is the observation that a fair amount of growth in South Africa's exports to the United States is fundamentally characterized by two key aspects namely; growth in specific commodities and an export base that is becoming gradually concentrated over time. This implies that trade between South Africa and the United States is shifting towards a new focus in line with AGOA incentives and by extension one may conclude that South African firms are utilizing the market opportunities and the networks that enable them to effectively exploit the United States market. In fulfilling the second research objective, the detailed trade potential analysis that is propped up by a robust analysis of trade trends was carried out. The trade potential analysis identified thirteen commodity groups as having high potential for further exports into the United States market, and Pearls, precious stones and metals were identified as having the highest indicative trade potential, although the picture changes as the data is further disaggregated. This suggests that there is enormous potential and a great scope for export of pearls, precious stones and metals to the United States.
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    The Competitive Dynamics of the Clothing Industry in Madagascar in the post-MFA Environment
    (2006) Morris, Mike; Sedowski, Leanne
    The last few years have witnessed two major shifts in global trading and industrialisation patterns. The first is the rise of China (with the South East Asian region in tow) as the dominant force reshaping the competitive dynamics between developing and developed countries as well as within the developing world itself. The second is exemplified in the rapid rise of a clothing industry sector, with a concomitant impact on wage employment, in some sub-Saharan African countries (amongst which Madagascar has been prominent), as a direct result of the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) of 2000. However, the end of the Multifibre Arrangement and the massive impact of China on the global dispersion of clothing production have threatened to substantially disrupt these processes. Despite the plethora of warnings, there is very little empirical analysis of the real changes taking place as a result of the changed global environment. Based on international trade data and field research undertaken in Madagascar, this article aims to analyze the clothing industry's current dynamics in Madagascar, given the impact of AGOA and the end of apparel quotas. The first section situates the clothing industry in Madagascar within the changing global environment. The second section provides an analysis of the competitiveness dynamics and global linkages operating in Madagascar based on primary research through firm level interviews undertaken in Madagascar in 2005. The article concludes by assessing the policy implications in the post-MFA world.
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    Industrialization Trajectories in Madagascar’s Export Apparel Industry: Ownership, Embeddedness, Markets, and Upgrading
    (2014) Morris, Mike; Staritz, Cornelia
    The paper shows the importance of ownership as a conceptual category within global value chain (GVC) analysis through analyzing firm types based on their GVC linkage, market access, and ownership profile in Madagascar’s apparel export industry. The central argument is that ownership leading to variances in embeddedness matters. Ownership characteristics of supplier firms shape the ability to shift between different end markets, respond to lead firm requirements, and pursue upgrading. With Madagascar’s exclusion from AGOA benefits this has enabled locally embedded European/French diaspora-owned firms and regionally embedded Mauritian-owned firms to shift market channels and upgrade while Asian-owned firms largely exited the industry.
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    Report on Government Responses to New post-MFA realities in Lesotho
    (2006) Morris, Mike; Sedowski, Leanne
    Since 2000, Lesotho along with Kenya, Madagascar and Swaziland, has seen year-toyear doubling of clothing exports to the United States under the AGOA program. These SSA countries have experienced tremendous growth in the clothing industry mainly because of AGOA duty-free benefits, but also due to advantageous exchange rates with the US dollar. However, on 31 December 2004, the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA), the quota system that restricted Chinese exports to developed countries ended, freeing China and other large producers from binding quotas. Dire predictions were made about the end of the clothing industry in SSA, which accounted for 3% of global garment exports in 2004. The winners would be China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, where global garment production would concentrate. Indeed, eight factories in Lesotho have closed, leaving 5,800 unemployed. Their closure has been attributed to a lack of orders as retailers source their garments elsewhere and to the appreciation of the Rand against the dollar. With layoffs at other factories, the total number of jobs lost is 10,700. The objectives of this study are to investigate and analyse policy and other responses of the Lesotho government to the liberalisation of the clothing and textile industry, with a focus on the end of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement. Included should be an examination of whether the utilisation of preferential measures (AGOA, ‘Everything but Arms’, Cotonou) will have any ameliorating effects.” The primary focus therefore of the paper is addressing the policy issue of what can be done to assist the firms remaining in Lesotho. This project investigates what the government in Lesotho has done in the build up to the end of the MFA as well as what strategies are available to the government to cement the industry in Lesotho for the future. In order to do this we conducted a number of interviews with firms, stakeholders and government officials in Lesotho.