<p>MANY African countries, including Tanzania, are likely to miss the opportunity of enhancing their trade relations with the US through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which is coming to an end in 2015.</p> <p>Therefore, urgent measures are crucial by African governments to engage the US government to put in place provisions and conditions that allows countries like Tanzania to diversify their exports besides their usual oil and textile industries.</p> <p>So far, the AGOA list excludes some of the key export products with great market potential in the US, including tobacco, processed cashew nuts, tea, honey and leather.</p> <p>On the other hand, the US government should listen to requests of diversifying AGOA exports by eligible countries that have so far failed to exploit fully the AGOA potential. For example, tobacco and processed cashew nuts, the country's leading crop in terms of foreign exchange among other traditional cash crops, as mentioned above, is not included in the AGOA enhancement plan.</p> <p>If included, together with cashew nut, is likely to bail out Tanzania in efforts to enhance exports to the US and enable the country to earn millions of US dollars adding to the current portfolio. According to the US Department of Trade report, the highest AGOA sales for Tanzania were in 2011 covering mostly apparels, estimated at about $5.7 million worth of goods exported to the US making it the fifth among Sub-Saharan surveyed countries benefiting from AGOA.</p> <p>Tailing behind Tanzania were Uganda's exports $2.541 million and Rwanda's $0.597 million. AGOA's purpose is to assist the economies of sub-Saharan Africa to improve economic relations between the US and the sub-Saharan region. Industry watchers have it that, efforts by African governments, Tanzania's in particular, is key in making sure the US government includes these other items, especially tobacco and cashew nut to be part of AGOA's enhancement plan in support of the World Trade Organisation in terms of the least developed countries (LDCs).</p> <p>Speaking on the occasion, US Trade Representative Michael Froman said President Obama, while visiting Tanzania announced the launch of Trade Africa, a new partnership between the US and Africa that seeks to increase internal and regional trade within Africa and expand trade and economic ties between Africa, the US and other global markets.</p> <p> </p>