COSATU calls for urgent govt intervention after SA removal from AGOA

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is calling for urgent government intervention after the United States officially removed South Africa from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade programme from January.

The federation says trade with the US will continue, but South African exporters will face additional costs as they will no longer benefit from duty-free access under the agreement.

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COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator Matthew Parks says the federation is particularly concerned about the impact on farmers and exporters, who are likely to face higher costs when accessing the US market.

“We’re particularly concerned about jobs in the agricultural sector, especially in the Western Cape, Limpopo, Northern Cape, where a lot of citrus farmers and other farmers export to the US. We’re also concerned about job losses, and we’ve seen some already over the past year and a half because of the fluctuation of tariffs from the US.”

“But I think also not to create too much of alarm, because what it means, it doesn’t mean you can’t export to the US, you can continue to export to the US. This just means that you lose about three and a half percent of reduced tariff regime towards the US. So you’re three and a half more expensive, in other words, for customers in the US,” says Parks.

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