Agoa pumps up transport sector exports

Leonard Neill SOUTH AFRICA’S transport equipment manufacturing sector derived most benefit from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) this year according to statistics released by Gillian Milovanovic, the US embassy’s charge d’affaires, who addressed the SA/US Building Business Partnerships conference in Johannesburg last week. Despite the international drop in South Africa’s export volumes as a result of the strong rand, exports from this country under Agoa for the first nine months of 2003 have already exceeded the total 2002 figure, she said. Transport equipment exports under Agoa reached $588million (R4,1bn) for the first nine months of this year. Last year’s total in this sector was $615million, (R4,3bn) and that was a 240% increase on the 2000 figure of $181million (R1,2bn).