| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
As Prepared for Delivery Good morning, friends and honored guests. I am proud and pleased to welcome you to Washington for this U.S.-Africa WTO Forum. Let me begin by recognizing each of our honored guests: Deputy Prime Minister Moses Ali of Uganda; Ministers Mouyama of Gabon, Abodakpi of Ghana, Biwott of Kenya, Malie of Lesotho, Traore of Mali, Bello of Nigeria, and Simba of Tanzania; and the Ambassadors of these nations. We deeply regret that Minister Thiam of Senegal can't join us. He has been in a car accident, is hospitalized, and we are wishing him a successful recovery. Let me also recognize the distinguished representatives of four African regional economic organizations: Mr. Oussouman of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community; Mr. Mwencha of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa; Mr. Pamacheche of the Southern African Development Community; and Mr. Kalou of the West African Economic and Monetary Union. Let me also welcome and thank National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, Deputy USAID Administrator Hattie Babbitt, and Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Richard Rominger for joining us at this event. We are meeting, as Ambassador Barshefsky noted earlier today, at a very auspicious moment. In Africa, it is a time of economic reform and democratic transition. In the United States, it is a moment of greater interest and attention to our relationship with Africa than ever before. With the House and Senate now agreeing upon the terms of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, we are beginning this new decade of economic partnership on the most promising terms imaginable. I want to thank, in particular, our good friends in Congress--Congressmen Rangel, McDermott, Jefferson, Crane, Royce and Archer, Lugar, Roth and Moynihan--for their work and support on the Act. The support your governments have given to the legislation--and as part of this, the decisive contribution of the African diplomatic corps in Washington--has also been of fundamental importance. This conference will bring us much further in our partnership, as we focus on the ways in which increased African participation and increased U.S.-African cooperation at the World Trade Organization can strengthen our relationship and produce the growing trade and investment Africa needs. Let me begin today, however, with some thoughts on the broader context: the goals of the trade policies we have developed together; the state of the U.S.-African trade relationship today; and the role of both our domestic initiatives and the WTO in helping us reach the goals we share. Working Together: U.S.-African Trade Policy Let me begin by reviewing our recent achievements: --We have completed a set of bilateral agreements that spur trade and investment, creating opportunities for our working people, farmers and entrepreneurs including our Trade and Investment Framework Agreements with Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa; and our Bilateral Investment Treaty with Mozambique. --We have worked toward a U.S. market more fully open to our African trading partners, through our expansion of duty-free preferences for least developed countries by 1,700 tariff lines two years ago, and the imminent completion of the African Growth and Opportunity Act. --As Deputy Administrator Babbitt will note, we have rethought and improved many of our assistance programs to help Africans gain access to the modern technological marketplace, through initiatives like the Leland Program with its support for Africa's access to the Internet and electronic commerce. --And we have made substantial progress toward Africa's full integration into the WTO. This has included technical assistance forums in Africa, promoting more active engagement by our African trade partners in WTO activities, joint development of proposals and ideas; and encouragement for increased African participation in the most recent WTO agreements, where especially important steps include the decisions by Uganda and Ghana to participate in the Basic Telecommunications Agreement, and by Cote d'Ivoire to join the Financial Services Agreement. The U.S.-African Trade Relationship Today We have worked successfully to expand our bilateral trade. If we set aside the more volatile oil and precious metal sectors, African exports to the U.S. have climbed by nearly $1 billion since the beginning of the President's Partnership Initiative. Africa's exports of machinery and apparel, sectors of special importance for job growth in Africa, have doubled. And the gains have been spread out over the continent--to look at a few of the countries represented here today, Mali's exports to the U.S. have grown 50%, Lesotho's apparel exports still more rapidly, and Tanzania's exports have nearly tripled. The United States has also developed important export markets in Africa, notably for high-tech products as civil aircraft, computers and scientific equipment. This means both an important source of job creation and opportunity for Americans, and technology transfers that help spark development in Africa. And American investment in Africa has grown from $6.8 billion in 1996 to over $13 billion. But when we look closely at our trade relationship, we see that there are areas in which we can do better. Despite the growth in Africa's manufactured and agricultural exports, most of our imports from Africa remain concentrated in natural resources. To be precise, in February nearly 80% of our in imports came in three commodities: oil, platinum, and diamonds. This makes for a glamorous sort of trade relationship. But it also shows that Africa's farmers and manufacturers still have untapped trade opportunities in the United States; and that African economies remain overly vulnerable to swings in commodity prices. And likewise, America's export growth to Africa has been slow compared to some other major export markets. African Growth and Opportunity Act So while we can be pleased with the results of our work thus far, we cannot yet be satisfied. Each part of our trade relationship can be strengthened, helping us find new areas of mutual benefit, promote development and social justice, and build upon our achievements to this point. And the coming year offers us some substantial opportunities. Most immediately, of course, is the imminent passage of the African Opportunity and Growth Act. This has been a long time coming--if it was an Olympic athlete it would be more like an East African marathon champion than an American sprinter. The Act strengthens and codifies each part of our African economic policy. It will help Africa diversify its exports to the United States, by opening up opportunities in apparel through quota-free guarantees and creating new duty-free preferences under the GSP. It will help us to link trade policies with debt relief and a regular trade dialogue. And it will help us build the foundation for the work which is the topic of our meeting today: Africa's full integration into the World Trade Organization. Shared Interests at the WTO The WTO is the central forum for reducing trade barriers and expanding commercial opportunities, establishing rules that afford commercial predictability, and providing a mechanism through which members can resolve trade disputes. In the WTO, we and Africa have shared interests of central importance, importantly, in the negotiations in agriculture and services that opened this year. --Open trade in agriculture can relieve African farmers of the burden imposed by protectionism and export subsidies, while helping to ensure that African families have reliable supplies of food at good prices. --More open markets in services will help African countries acquire the expertise and legal, financial, transport, information and telecommunications infrastructure that will spur more rapid and stable development in the next century. --And a strong negotiating agenda for industrial goods, trade facilitation, and our principles in electronic commerce--in particular, guarantees that tariffs will not be imposed on electronic transmissions over the Internet--will be especially important to African development. We are therefore working to build consensus for a new, more broadly based Round that would include such issues. This is of course not a simple task; and if it is to succeed, all WTO members will need to be flexible and willing to rethink their negotiating positions. But as the President has said, we will keep working toward consensus and expect our trading partners to do the same. Any Round agenda must accommodate African goals, and over the next three days I would like to hear your advice and ideas on the best way forward. WTO Initiatives Africa's full integration into the trading system will help both to ensure that Africa makes the most of its opportunities for growth and development. To facilitate Africa's full integration, we have made a priority in the WTO this year Africa's concern about enhanced market access and capacity building. In fact, we expect Director General Mike Moore to announce this evening in the late General Council meeting that many trading partners have committed to expand market access for LDC's under their preference programs. In addition, we also expect Director General Moore to announce today the revitalization of capacity building efforts within the WTO as a high priority matter. The proposal that Lesotho, Nigeria, Senegal and Zambia and the U.S. put forward together in the WTO has served as a reference point for reforming and improving delivery of capacity building services under the integrated framework program. A parallel and critical element of these efforts is the World Bank's commitment to mainstream trade capacity building in their country assistance programs and to assist the WTO in delivering effective assistance under the integrated framework. Over the next few days, we hope you will share your ideas and experiences on reforming capacity building efforts so that the delivery of technical assistance can be meaningful, organized, comprehensive, and practical. We will also share with you our experience in building a framework for trade policy in the hope that it may help you achieve some of the principal goals Africans have set: to open and keep open foreign markets for your exports; to comply with WTO obligations; and to ensure that the work of regional trade organizations in Africa complements fully the work of the WTO. Today, I am pleased to announce today that we will commit $2.5 million in technical assistance to help sub-Saharan African countries meet their commitments, including complying with the Customs Valuation Agreement and improve their customs procedures, participating in WTO courses in sub-Saharan Africa, and providing several scholarships for a longer training session in Geneva. Conclusion The objective of this forum is to enhance dialogue between the U.S. and Africa on WTO issues, to provide high level technical assistance on key WTO agreements, and to identify areas of mutual interest. To that end, we have a comprehensive program covering dispute settlement; trade remedy laws; market access, including services and agriculture as well as goods; interaction with the international financial institutes, customs valuation, and other issues. We hope it will make a substantial contribution to the ability of each government here to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the WTO, and I look forward to our exchanges very much. This conference is one step in a broader effort which President Clinton, Ambassador Barshefsky, and the Administration as a whole have pursued since taking office in 1993: that of creating a strong and durable U.S.-African economic partnership in this new century. These issues are by no means simple; but we should proceed with confidence and optimism as we remember how far we have already come. In the past five years, Americans and Africans have built a network of agreements, commercial relationships and shared benefit unprecedented in our history. We have shared ideas on policy and learned from one another's experience. We have found common ground on some of the most profound issues facing the world today--and in doing so have helped to improve life for farmers, for working people and, for families in our countries. In the next three days, we can go still further. Once again, let me welcome each of you to Washington; and let me now turn to National Economic Chairman, Gene Sperling. [end of document] Remarks Index | Africa Affairs | Department of State | Secretary of State |
