The opening of a new AGOA Resource Center within the Investment Promotion Agency (API) in Mali will help businesses in the country improve their productivity and marketing, business leaders said.

“It’s important because we know we are AGOA eligible and this will help us understand how to use AGOA in practical terms,” said Dikou Traore, a fashion designer in Mali and the country’s representative to the African Federation of Designers. “We need to understand better the American market and this will help us do that.”

The new center was officially inaugurated on March 18 by U.S. Ambassador Gillian Milovanovic, Mali’s Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce Ahmadou Abdoulaye Diallo, the Investment Promotion Agency’s Director Mansour Haidara and Trade Hub Director Vanessa Adams. They signed a memorandum of understanding formally establishing the center, too.
“Experience has shown that small and medium enterprises, when they have adequate access to the market, are the best way to create jobs and viable economic development,” Ambassador Milovanovic said. “The AGOA Resource Center that we are inaugurating today aims to help exporters and increase their chances of success.” 

Using AGOA effectively allows companies to take advantage of duty-free status for over 6,400 products coming from eligible African countries. AGOA Resource Centers managed by the Trade Hub and public sector partners in 13 countries across West Africa help businesses actually use the trade benefits to increase their exports.

“We can use AGOA to increase the competitiveness of our processed agricultural products,” said Sakoma Keita, general manager of Group Agridef in Mali. His company produces processed tomatoes, mangoes, potatoes and onions.

“AGOA has a positive impact on farmers,” he said. “If we can export processed tomatoes to the world, it creates a stable market for the tomatoes that they cannot sell on the local market.”

The opening of the ARC took place after a three-day training of AGOA Resource Center administrators from around the region had finished in Bamako a day earlier. The administrators of each center from across the region discussed a variety of issues affecting exports in their countries and delivery of services to businesses.

ARCs across the region are the first place businesses go to learn about exporting. Click here for a list of administrators and contact information.

“The meeting was very positive, it allowed us to review our activities and share experiences,” said Serigne Alioune Diop, who administers the ARC within the Senegalese Export Promotion Agency in Senegal.

“We benefited from everyone’s experience because each country has different potentials and challenges,” he added. “This exchange of experiences is very enriching.”

The resource centers not only help businesses take advantage of export opportunities – they also promote the development of national export strategies in each country, said Trade Hub AGOA Services Coordinator Abou Fall.

“Each country has a few key sectors where it benefits from competitive advantages,” Fall explained. “It’s critical for countries to develop strategies to promote those value chains. From customs to banks to government to the private sector – the question is, what can they all do together to promote a sector, what does it take to expand exports by a significant amount”

A good export strategy ensures that a sector benefits from the synergies of stakeholders.

“If government and the private sector are not working together, there is a lack of coherence and they spend money on differing priorities,” Fall said. “Incentives for export may not be aligned with others and they end up competing with each other.”

To gain benefits from AGOA, government and private sector in the region must work together to improve their competitiveness. The ARC network will play a pivotal role in building that capacity.