African Growth And Opportunity Act Research Articles

Does the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) impact EU-15 imports from Africa?

PurposeAt the heart of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) are substantial trade preferences, which coupled with the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) grant a wide range of goods produced in qualified African countries duty-free access to the USA. To be AGOA-eligible, countries are assessed annually on their progress in undertaking appropriate economic, institutional and human rights reforms. This paper seeks to cover new grounds by exploring whether exports of apparel to US crowds out EU-15's imports from Africa.Design/methodology/approachThis paper employs the gravity model to gauge trade displacement effects from the EU to the US due to AGOA, and whether the more relaxed special waiver embodied in AGOA's apparel provision causes non-knitted exports to EU-15 to be crowded out. The basic gravity model, which posits that trade between two countries is positively influenced by the economic size and negatively affected by the distance between them, is augmented with other trade inhibiting and trade facilitating variables.FindingsThe gravity model provides no evidence of trade displacement but, instead, provides support for the hypothesis of complementarity of African exports to the two key markets. A strong positive impact of the bilateral trade between the US and Africa on the EU–African trade is evident mainly before the phasing out of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC). This paper finds that Special Rule beneficiaries' exports to the two markets still complement each other, but for every percentage increase in exports to the USA, there is a less than proportionate increase in exports to EU-15 indicating a higher utilisation of the special waiver. This paper also provides evidence for complementary apparel exports to both LDCs (least developing countries) and non-LDCs, with stronger effects on non-LDCs and the non-knitted sector.Research limitations/implicationsFuture work could consider the longer lifespan of AGOA following its latest renewal in 2015. This would allow one to also capture the ongoing changes in EU trade arrangements in particular implementation of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). This new agreement comes with more flexible rules of origin requiring single transformation step instead of the double step. As most African nations are still in the process of adopting EPAs, new research can shed more light on complementary or displacement effects once these agreements are adopted.Originality/valueSince the main intent of AGOA is to enhance Africa's integration into the global economy by encouraging trade and investment, generate employment and increase productivity and per capita income growth, its impact on Special Rule beneficiaries' exports to the US has been extensively examined. However, the indirect effects of this trade agreement on African exports to other key markets providing similar preferences such as the EU has not been fully explored. This study also covers new grounds by examining whether there has been any apparel trade displacement from the EU to the US, as a result of the Act, over 2001–2016 period right from AGOA's inception.

Does trade reduce infant mortality? Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract Trade can affect the development process of a country via various direct and indirect mechanisms. Empirically, it is difficult to identify causal effects, as trade is likely to be endogenous to other socio-economic factors that also affect development. To overcome this problem, this study uses a trade policy experiment called the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) which conferred many sub-Saharan African countries largely duty-free and quota-free access to US markets. Using retrospective birth histories from Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), I develop a large micro panel dataset that spans 30 sub-Saharan African countries and carry out a within-mother variation in survival of infant to find a causal impact of the policy. Identification in this analysis is based on each country’s exposure to the trade policy at different points in time. I find that the policy reduces infant mortality by about 9% of the sample mean, even after controlling for country-time linear trends as well as mother’s time invariant characteristics. Event study reveals no effects prior to AGOA implementation, corroborating that the decrease in infant mortality is due to AGOA. I also find strong heterogeneous effects at the country and household level. The effects range from there being no significant effect to a strong increase or a strong decrease in infant deaths at the country level. The effect of AGOA on infant survival is stronger for countries that export large amounts of agricultural goods and mineral ores as compared to oil exporting countries. At the micro level, I see stronger effects for the uneducated, rural, and poor women via those women employed in agriculture or using manual labor, indicating increasing incomes as a possible mechanism. This study provides the first estimates of the effects of AGOA on infant mortality and adds to the literature on the quantitative impact of trade on health.

Are Trade Preferences a Panacea? The African Growth and Opportunity Act and African Exports

Does infant industry preferential access durably boost export performance? This paper exploits significant trade policy changes in the United States around the turn of the 21st century to address this question. The expansion of Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) products for less developed countries in 1997 and the implementation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in 2001 is used to assess whether preferential access boosts exports of eligible products in general and apparel specifically. The phase-out of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) in 2005 is used to assess whether any expansion in apparel exports survived the erosion of preferences. To find a causal impact of these changes on exports to the United States from a given beneficiary country, the analysis uses a triple-differences regression and 26 years of newly constructed trade and tariff data at the country-product-year level (1992-2017). The analysis finds that the AGOA boosted African apparel exports, and the expansion of the GSPincreased African exports of other eligible products. While the marginal impacts on African apparel exports grew sharply in the first years of AGOA, the impacts leveled off after 2005, when the end of the MFA quotas unleashed competition from Asian countries. The illusion of sustained African apparel exports is created by three late-bloomers in East Africa offsetting the boom-bust pattern in Southern Africa and the never-significant response in Central and Western Africa. Firm-level customs data for selected countries reveal that even in East Africa, the recent export growth was driven by new entrants rather than by incumbent firms whose competitiveness might have been nurtured by the big preference margins during the early AGOA period. Understanding the heterogeneous response to trade preferences remains a challenge. However, preliminary evidence suggests that preferential access per se was not sufficient but needed to be complemented by specific domestic reforms: tariff liberalization, reduced regulatory burden, enhanced connectivity, and competitive exchange rates.

Small and Medium-Scale Agro-Produce Entrepreneurship and Promotion of Non-Oil Exports from Nigeria

The study undertook a critical appraisal of marketing communications’ tools for the promotion of non-oil exports by small and medium-scale agro-produce entrepreneurs in Nigeria. It was motivated by the problem of low performance of the non-oil export sub-sector in the country. This is in spite of government’s incentives and the introduction of African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in May 2000 by the United States of America, which was to improve export of products particularly in agriculture from Sub-Saharan Africa to the United States. The focus of AGOA was to enhance the economic growth of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa through export leverages rooted in the reduction of tariffs and non-tariff barriers. The specific objectives of the study were to: determine the effect of internet-marketing communications media as tools for promoting small and medium-scale farming entrepreneurs’ non-oil exports from Nigeria; and ascertain the effect of social-media communications as tools for promoting small and medium-scale farming entrepreneurs’ non-oil exports from Nigeria. Survey research design was adopted in the study. The sample frame comprised small and medium-scale agro-produce farmers drawn from three States representing the three-former regional structure of the country. Data sourced were statistically analyzed. Results indicate that both internet marketing and social media communications were not yet significant for promoting non-oil exports by small and medium-scale farming entrepreneurs from Nigeria, because of other serious diluting variables like poor products’ quality, packaging, processing, storage and other systemic bottlenecks. It was then recommended that the Governments in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Nigeria, should introduce and educate small and medium-scale agro-produce entrepreneurs wishing to go into non-oil exports, among other things, to improve their products’ qualities to meet international markets’ standards, before employing internet and social media marketing communications to create global awareness and demands for them.

The AGOA as stepping stone for USA–Africa free trade agreements

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to show how the pattern of trade relations between the USA and African countries is gradually shifting toward reciprocity. It therefore demonstrates that the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was conceived to be a building block toward future bilateral trade agreements.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts a historical approach to the USA’s policy toward Africa in general and in trade matters in particular. It critically reviews the chronology of US involvement in the continent.FindingsAlthough it was designed as a preferential trade arrangement, AGOA was intended to evolve into reciprocal trade agreements. This is what the USA started doing even prior to the entry into force of the AGOA, by entering into Trade and Investment Framework Agreements with individual countries or blocs. It also transpires that the deployment comes as a response to the European Union which is already engaged in the redefinition of its own trade relations with Africa since 2004.Originality/valueThe paper is important in many respects. Not only it is a study of the US practice as preference-granting country, but it is also interested in the typology of trade agreements concluded by the USA in other regions of the world. This is important to indicate and analyze the types of provisions African countries should be expected to face when the time of entering into reciprocal binding trade treaties arrives.

The AGOA Extension and Enhancement Act of 2015, the SA–US AGOA negotiations and the Future of AGOA

AbstractThe African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is a non-reciprocal preferential trade programme that the US offers to 49 sub-Saharan African countries. President Obama's decision to extend AGOA, which was set to expire at the end of September 2015, for another ten years (2015 to 2025), was highly controversial. The Extension and Enhancement of AGOA Act, signed into law by President Obama, on the 29 June 2015, had thus included many new provisions to incorporate the views of the US Congress on the implementation of the ten-year extension and the future trajectory of AGOA. In this paper, the new Extension and Enhancement of AGOA Act is analysed to elucidate the new and additional powers that the new AGOA Act provides the US Congress, the US Administration, and US business lobbies, and the implications of these changes for sub-Saharan African countries. At least three new trends in the 2015 AGOA Act can be identified: payment for preferences, institutional attrition, and a shift to reciprocity. These trends, it is argued in this paper, are potentially contrary to a more mutually beneficial relationship between the US and Africa. The paper offers some reflections on the future of AGOA.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act and the African Continental Free Trade Area

This essay assesses and evaluates the extent to which the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) increased imports from AGOA eligible countries to the United States from 2001 to 2015. The essay then examines how African countries can make the most of the preferences granted under AGOA, arguing that AGOA national utilization strategies have proven successful. In the final part, the essay explores options for future U.S.-Africa trade relations after the AGOA expires in 2025, proposing approaches that would best support African development. In this regard, this essay argues that, since Congress is unlikely to renew AGOA in its current form and since AGOA will likely be replaced with an arrangement requiring some degree of reciprocity, it will be very important for (1) the African Union's Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) to be implemented before any new U.S.-Africa trading arrangement comes into force and (2) for negotiations for any future U.S.-Africa trading arrangement not to mimic the negotiations conducted for the Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union.

Defining and Redefining U.S.-Africa Trade Relations During the Trump Presidency

In an era in which multilateral trade arrangements have garnered more public notoriety than ever before, the suboptimal trade and investment relationship between America and Africa, as underpinned by the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), is one of the less controversial ones. AGOA could nevertheless use some adjustments or augmentations to facilitate deeper U.S.-Africa commercial relations. For instance, adjusting AGOA's origin rules could nudge the private sector on both sides of the Atlantic towards gains for U.S. and African employment and the reduction of trade deficits. Africa must leverage the period before AGOA expires to redefine its trade relationship with the United States in innovative ways. The United States should welcome these measures, since the type of value that Africa would add to the global supply chain would not replace the high-quality jobs that the Trump Administration would like to see in the United States. In fact, this type of production would make U.S. manufacturing more competitive.

US Engagement with Swaziland: What has Power, Ideology and Interest got to do with it?

A lot has been said and written, particularly in the Swazi media, about Swaziland’s loss of African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) eligibility and the social and economic implications of this. However, this article locates the loss within a broad context of the evolution of US engagement with Swaziland from the Cold War period to the present. It discusses this relationship through the lenses of ideology, power and interest. These concepts are familiar and useful in the study of inter-state relations. They offer important insights into the means by which states pursue their goals, the motives behind their preferences and choices, and the limits on their ambitions. Guided by these operative concepts, the article shows that geo-strategic considerations largely influenced US engagement with Swaziland in the Cold War days – it counted on the power resources of attraction and persuasion to garner Swaziland’s cooperation to contain revolutionary ideas and communism in Southern Africa. The article shows that de-listing of Swaziland from AGOA beneficiaries marks a turning point in post-Cold War US-Swaziland relations. It argues that the US, freed from the constraints of Cold War politics and the concomitant decline of Swaziland’s strategic value, is now deploying coercive instruments to promote political reforms in the country. However, the article contends that this use of structural power has its limits and it therefore recommends a re-think of US policy.

The gravity model, African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and US trade relations with sub-Saharan Africa

The United States of America enacted the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in 2000 to grant sub-Saharan African countries (SSA) a preferential treatment in their exports to the USA. With this Act, most of the exports from SSA can now enter the USA duty-free, and this is expected to boost the exporting and manufacturing sectors in SSA. Hopefully, this singular act of assistance from the USA will spur entrepreneurship in SSA, thereby creating jobs and jump starting meaningful economic growth in the region. Since trade is a major catalyst in economic development, AGOA is arguably the most meaningful intervention from a developed country to an under-developed region such as SSA in recent times. Has AGOA had any impact on US trade with SSA? This paper sheds some light on this issue by examining the flow and composition of trade between the USA and AGOA countries. The analysis uses trade data (US imports) for 36 countries over 12 years. Empirical estimations based on the gravity model show that receiving AGOA status has a strong positive and significant impact on overall trade with the US. Interestingly, however, the analysis also shows a disproportionate impact of crude oil imports from the oil-producing countries of Angola, Gabon, and Nigeria, which is clearly not the intent of the Act.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and export diversification

This paper explores the effect of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) on export diversification in Sub-Saharan Africa. The existing empirical studies suggest that AGOA has had a positive effect on the overall volume of trade between Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States. However, the economic development literature emphasizes the importance of export diversification for developing countries; therefore, it is important to understand the effects of AGOA on the extensive margin of trade (i.e. the number of distinct products a country exports). Our empirical results suggest that AGOA does contribute to export diversification, specifically through its apparel provision. Countries that are eligible for the AGOA apparel provision export not only more apparel products, but also more non-apparel products to the USA. Thus, AGOA contributes to export diversification at the extensive margin of trade with the USA.

Local Embeddedness, Upgrading and Skill Development: Global Value Chains and Foreign Direct Investment in Lesotho's Apparel Industry

Many low-income countries (LICs) are integrated into apparel global value chains (GVCs) through foreign direct investment (FDI). This is also the case in Lesotho that has developed to the largest Sub-Sahara African (SSA) apparel exporter to the US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). More recently, a new apparel export market has emerged in Lesotho the regional market of South Africa. The two export markets US and South Africa are supplied by different types of FDI firms affiliates of largely Taiwanese transnational producers and South African manufacturers that are incorporated into distinct value chains. This paper assesses the implications for upgrading of integration into these two value chains in Lesotho - the value chain characterized by Taiwanese investment and feeding into the US market under AGOA and the value chain characterized by South African investment and feeding into the South African market. These value chains differ with regard to ownership patterns, end markets, export products, governance structures and firm set up, investors motivations, and perceptions on main challenges. These different characteristics have crucial impacts on upgrading possibilities, including functional, process and upgrading. Thus, from the perspective of upgrading and sustainability, ownership patterns, local embeddedness and market diversification matter. The emergence of South Africa as an alternative end market and the different value chain dynamics operating in the South African retailer-governed value chain open up new opportunities from those of the AGOA/Taiwanese-dominated value chain.

Local Embeddedness and Economic and Social Upgrading in Madagascar's Export Apparel Industry

Over the past decade, several Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries have developed or expanded export-oriented apparel industries in the context of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quotas and preferential market access, most importantly under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Madagascar is different to the other main SSA low-income country (LIC) apparel exporters – Kenya, Lesotho and Swaziland – given its more diverse end markets and ownership structures and the political instability that led to the loss of AGOA status at the end of 2009. This paper assesses the development of Madagascar’s export-oriented apparel industry and economic and social upgrading dynamics in particular in the context of the AGOA loss. It identifies four types of firms and value chains that differ with regard to ownership patterns, end markets and, most importantly, ‘local embeddedness’, with important implications for both economic upgrading dynamics and possibilities and the sustainability of the industry. The paper concludes that, despite the contraction in the export-oriented apparel industry post-AGOA, Madagascar is still a more successful apparel producer in terms of economic upgrading than the other main apparel-exporting LICs in SSA. The key to this trajectory lies in the differentiation of global value chain (GVC) relationships, local embeddedness and export diversification.

African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional trade: Challenges and prospects

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is a US trade act that has significantly enhances US trade with about 39 Sub-Saharan (SSA) countries. However, despite the opportunities in the trade program ECOWAS countries have not benefitted much from the available opportunities in the program. The mission of this paper is to look at why ECOWAS countries have not been able to capture the opportunities of AGOA significantly, from the perspective of process product methods (PPM) standards and what need to be done by ECOWAS to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the program. Therefore, this paper advocated some recommendations to ECOWAS leaders and other policy makers ECOWAS countries should strengthen their current position on trade and investments by expanding the list of their products on AGOA to include some more processed agricultural products that are deemed import-sensitive. Similarly the pre-conditions for eligibility into AGOA should be relaxed; especially protection of workers’ rights, intellectual property rights etc, due to the low level of trade from the region as most firms in the region are at infant stage and may be costly for them to carry out reforms in their operation areas, as they need time to do this. Furthermore, the use of trade preferences as a tool to promote foreign policy objective by USA will not produce significant benefits in terms of enhancing the regions trade and overall economic performance, the exclusion of Cote d’Ivoire is a reference point. Further studies can be carried out especially on the need for trade expansion among countries in the region and on knowledge management in ECOWAS states. Key words: African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), trade, exports.

The European Union Economic Partnership Agreements with Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper analyses the impacts of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries and those of the EU (European Union) in the specific case of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In order to comply with WTO (World Trade Organisation) requirements, the EPAs shift the trade preferences previously enjoyed by the ACP countries to a free trade regime between the EU and regional groupings of ACP countries. EPAs were supposed to fully enter into force at the end of 2007, but many ACP SSA countries have not been ready or have been reluctant to implement them at that date. EPAs are examined in their different contexts, in particular the theoretical underpinnings of trade liberalisation and regionalism respectively, as well as the increasing number of regional arrangements aiming at ‘deep’ regional integration in all parts of the world, which ensued from the disappointment with multilateralism of many developed and developing countries. EPAs are then investigated in the specific context of SSA, i.e. that of a distorted trade structure, an excessive dependence on commodity exports, fragile industrial bases, as well as by a disputed effectiveness of its many intra-SSA regional agreements. EPAs co-exist with other North-South preferential trade agreements, in particular the EU GSP (Generalised System of Preferences), including the EBA (Everything But Arms) initiative, and the US AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act).It is shown that EPAs will have very different outcomes depending on countries and their particular initial conditions, economic structures and regional context. It is also revealed that these outcomes depend on many variables: global factors, international prices, domestic market structures, trade policies conducted by the EU, the governments and various trade agreements to which they belong. EPA outcomes are therefore uncertain and can be assessed only on a case by case basis, at the level of countries, sectors and products. In addition, many impact assessments rely on simulations, which cannot be considered as ‘hard facts’.EPAs may have beneficial effects on SSA countries and enhance their exports and competiveness. They may constitute a mode of integration that is more efficient than multilateral liberalisation, and in fine may be a more manageable step towards multilateralisation, especially in poor countries. However, EPAs exhibit several risks, e.g. diverting trade, augmenting the complexity of the already complex ‘spaghetti bowl’ of trade arrangements, creating fiscal losses in countries that suffer from narrow fiscal bases and rely on trade taxes, eroding the existing industrial bases - which are fragile, threatened by more competitive developing countries, especially China, and often depend on the previous EU unilateral preferences - and benefiting EU firms more than those of SSA.EPAs have the ambition to foster trade, improve regional relationships, deepen north-south integration and enhance development. These are numerous objectives, and moreover countries may strongly differ: they can be reached if EPAs help countries to reinforce their capacity to conduct their policies - the ‘policy space’ - control the effects of trade diversion and displacements of industrial activities that often accompany free trade agreements, and strengthen their industrial sectors, as high-growth Asian countries.

Nonreciprocal Trade Agreements and Trade: Does the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Increase Trade?

The recent proliferation of preferential trade agreements, reaching almost 400 in number, has made it increasingly important to determine their effects on trade flows. This study advances our understanding of the effect of a particular type of trade agreement, a nonreciprocal agreement between a major economic power and less developed countries often used as a foreign policy/foreign aid tool by the major power and allowable under WTO Special and Differential Treatment. The study tests the effect of a recently implemented nonreciprocal agreement between the United States and sub-Saharan Africa, the 2000 African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), on trade. A traditional gravity model is employed to test whether AGOA opens market access in the United States for eligible countries’ exports. The results of this study suggest that AGOA membership and eligibility for AGOA textile benefits have no significant effect on trade, an explicit goal of this agreement. Uncertainty about the expiration of preferences, eroding preferential margins, and the inability of African producers to adequately exploit preferences are explanations for these results.

Value chain dynamics, local embeddedness, and upgrading in the clothing sectors of Lesotho and Swaziland

This paper assesses the implications for upgrading of integration into two distinct clothing value chains in Lesotho and Swaziland- the value chain characterised by Taiwanese investment and feeding into the US market under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the value chain characterised by South African investment and feeding into the South African market. These value chains differ with regard to ownership patterns, end markets, governance structures, retailers’ demands, and investors’ motivations. These different characteristics have crucial impacts on upgrading possibilities, including functional, process and ‘local’ upgrading. Thus, from the perspective of upgrading and sustainability, ownership patterns, local embeddedness and market diversification matter. The emergence of South Africa as an alternative end market and the different value chain dynamics operating in the South African retailer-governed value chain opens up new opportunities from those of the AGOA/Taiwanese-dominated value chain.

An Indian Perspective on United States Africa Command (AFRICOM)

AFRICOM is a new institution representing the new manner of US engagement. This is different from the EU model of engagement and comes at a time when India and China are seen as important partners of Africa. This paper is written to provide an insight into AFRICOM from an Indian perspective of Africa. This differs from the EU view and also from Africa's own response. US policy towards Africa consists of African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) + AFRICOM; whereas AGOA is better understood, AFRICOM is not. This paper proposes to fill some of the gaps in its understanding. It points to the perception that the US manner of engagement is more political than economic, and it differs from the functional engagements that India, China or even the EU have with Africa.

The Doha Round and Market Access for LDCs: Scenarios for the EU and US Markets

Least developed countries (LDCs) hoped that the DOHA round would bring them greater market access in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries than for non-LDCs. Using HS-6 tariff level data for the United States and the EU for 2004, this paper estimates that, once the erosion from preferential access into the EU to non-LDCs is taken into account, LDCs have about a 3% preferential margin in the EU market. In the US market, in spite of preferences under the African Growth and Opportunity Act(AGOA), on a trade-weighted basis, LDCs are discriminated against. Under various ‘Swiss formulas’ for tariff cuts, effective market access for LDCs in the EU will be negligible and still negative in the United States. If the United States were to apply a 97% rule (i.e, duty-free quota-free access for all but 3% of the tariff lines), LDCs could increase exports by 10% or about USD 1 billion annually. Effective market access is further reduced by complicated Rules of Origin (RoO) applied by the EU and the United States. Furthermore, generally, the most restrictive RoO fall on products in which LDCs have the greatest preferential market access.

The Costs of Rules of Origin in Apparel: African Preferential Exports to the United States and the European Union

The European Union and the United States offer, simultaneously, preferential market access to exports of a group of African countries. Although similar regarding the extent of preferences for apparel, a key sector for least developed countries, these agreements differ as regards rules of origin (RoO). While the Everything But Arms initiative and the Cotonou Agreement require yarn to be woven into fabric and then made up into apparel in the same country or in a country qualifying for cumulation, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) grants a special regime to 'lesser developed countries,' which allows them to use fabric of any origin and still meet the criteria for preferences, thus making a case for a natural experiment. This paper aims to assess econometrically the impact of different RoO on those African countries' exports. The main finding is that relaxing RoO by allowing the use of fabric of any origin increased exports of apparel by about 300 per cent for the top seven beneficiaries of AGOA’s special regime, and broadened the range of apparel exported by those countries.