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NRF welcomes AGOA extension |
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2004-7-15
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Approval of the AGOA Acceleration Act by President George Bush, has been warmly welcomed by The National Retail Federation. The act was due for expiration in September this year.
"Signing AGOA III into law will end the uncertainty that has surrounded this program for some time now," NRF Vice President and International Trade Counsel Erik Autor said.
Stating that the retailers had begun to cancel apparel orders from African factories as extension of AGOA was in doubt. The net effect would have been catastrophic for many factories would have shut down rendering thousands jobless in the African continent. “Enactment of this bill puts an end to those worries," Autor said.
AGOA is a four-year-old law that allows U.S. retailers to import apparel, duty and quota-free from countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The overall program is authorized through September 30, 2008, but a critical provision allowing the use of third-country yarn and fabric was due to expire this September.
"This provision has been instrumental in spurring trade and investment in the apparel sector and giving Africa''s nascent apparel industry in its poorest countries a competitive leg up by providingthem flexibility in accessing the materials they need to manufacture clothing," Autor said.
"If this provision had been allowed to lapse a mere three months before the end of global textile and apparel quotas, the future of the African apparel industry would have been bleak."
The bill extends the third-country yarn and fabric provision through September 2007 and the overall program through September 2015. |
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