President Uhuru Kenyatta and US President
Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, DC during an official visit
August 27, 2018. FILE PHOTO | JOAN PERERUAN | NATION MEDIA GROUP
The Trump administration has tapped Kenya
as the first sub-Saharan nation to start talks with the US on a bilateral trade
deal, the Bloomberg News agency reported on Tuesday.
The prestigious designation is expected to
be announced during President Kenyatta's visit to Washington next week, Bloomberg said.
Kenya's Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary
Macharia Kamau confirmed the report.
TRADE PACT
Mr Kamau told Bloomberg that the
US and Kenya are aiming for significant progress towards an agreement in the
coming months.
He added that President Kenyatta's Cabinet
will probably approve discussions with the US this week.
Completion of a bilateral trade pact could
bring major benefits to Kenya's economy and enhance the nation's political
standing in Africa and beyond.
Trump administration officials have
previously indicated that the US wants to forge bilateral trade deals with
sub-Saharan countries as successor arrangements to the multilateral African
Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) programme that is due to expire in 2025.
TRADE PARTNER
State Department diplomats have said the US
will try to hammer out on a deal with a single sub-Saharan nation that would
serve as a model for other individual trade pacts in the region.
Kenya ranks as the United States'
sixth-biggest trade partner in the sub-Saharan region, Bloomberg noted, with
total exchanges of goods and services between the two countries reaching nearly
$1.2 billion in 2018.
Kenya has also been one of the leading
beneficiaries of the 20-year-old African Growth and Opportunity Act which gives
preferential treatment to exports from selected countries. Agoa has been
especially helpful to Kenya's textile sector.
Thanks for reading. Follow the page and Share it.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment