Business
Guinea, Niger and Cote d’Ivoire re-open for U.S. Small Businesses
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Small businesses can launch or resume commercial activities with Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Guinea and Niger now that President Obama has restored trade preferences and other benefits to those countries under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
The centerpiece of the United States’ Africa trade policy, AGOA allows most goods produced in designated countries to enter the U.S. market duty free. That’s a powerful incentive for U.S. small businesses to import goods from those countries, or to invest in export-oriented manufacturing ventures there. According to the most current figures available from the U.S. Department of Commerce, small and medium-sized U.S. businesses accounted for 97.1 percent of identified importers in 2009.