The World Trade Centre, Miami, United States has blamed inadequate funding by African governments for the poor showcasing of African products under the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA)
The Centre’s Director, African Trade Expansion Programme, Yemi Arosanyin, said this at the ongoing 24th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in Kigali, yesterday.
According to Arosanyin, African governments are not utilising the opportunities presented by AGOA to aid growth of small businesses.
“For instance, contrary to reports, most Nigerian products are good and sophisticated, the challenge has been government’s poor funding in the appropriate areas to promote the products.
“There are agencies responsible for the promotion of these products, which need to fine tune the products for them to be accepted in the U.S.
“The Federal Government needs to do more in this regard. The funding needs to be fast because AGOA has only eight years left before it will either be stopped or reviewed by the American government,’’ she said.
She added that Nigeria apart from crude had a lot to export to the U.S. in the areas of food and beverages, fashion and art works.
According to her, these products require little push to compete favourably at the international markets, except for South Africa no other African country out of the 38 countries under AGOA benefits from non-oil  products.
Arosanyin said that to achieve much from AGOA, the centre had partnered Afreximbank to help African countries overcome the challenges by promoting their products.
The Tide source reports that the theme of this year’s AGM is: “Transforming Africa’s Trade’’.