Draconion U.S. Import Rules Hold Import Senegal Tuna Steaksff

The spotless production floor of Pecheries Frigorifiques du Senegal is a hive of women in white coats turning fresh-caught tuna into steaks that slide into sterile foil pouches gaily printed with the labels of their clients.

With duty-free status under a five-year-old program to boost trade ties between Africa and the United States, tuna steaks like these could be appearing on grocery store shelves from Boston to Bakersfield, part of a different kind of effort to spur development on the world's poorest continent.

“The US market is extremely competitive and we are not blind to the difficulties we face in putting our product out there,” said Faycal Sharara, president of PFS, bemoaning the low-cost and high-volume capacity of Asian competitors.

”But at least with AGOA, our product, and all African products, have a decent shot."

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was signed by US president Bill Clinton in May 2000 to integrate Africa into the global economy by boosting trade with the United States, the continent's largest single country market.

In the five years since, AGOA has waived customs duties and import fees for 37 African countries on items from minerals to mangoes and tube socks in between, for 26.6 billion dollars in 2004.

US exports to Africa in that same period hit 8.6 billion dollars.

Oil represents the lion’s share of what Africa sells to the United States -- some 87 percent of exports.

Textiles and food products have gradually found purchase but as PFS has learned, duty-free does not make anything easier when it comes to wading through the administrative and bureaucratic process accompanying exports to the United States.

The company, which has produced flake, chunk and steak tuna for European markets for 16 years with similar duty-free benefits, was invited in March 2005 to be one of six companies to represent Africa at the Boston International Seafood Fair.

Canned tuna is not eligible for AGOA export, but steaks hermetically sealed into sterilized foil pouches are, and PFS has been packing and selling those under French, Italian, Spanish and Danish seafood labels since 2002.

”We met brokers, we reached deals and we were ready to sign agreements,” said Sonia Sharara, sales coordinator for the 600-employee company.

“And we’ve filled out all the forms, recorded all of the serial numbers and are waiting to hear. And we’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting.”

It’s been a five-year wait for Senegal to begin exporting agricultural products, even with the trade preferences afforded by AGOA, noted Cheikh Sadibou Seck, the west African state’s director for external commerce.

”US import laws are draconian, especially in agriculture where the sanitation measures are incredibly strict,” he told AFP.

”Five years we’ve been waiting to send our beans to the United States, and we know it's going to be the same for our melons and mangoes.”

Such concerns will be a cornerstone of a forum opening Monday in the Senegalese capital, attracting trade, agriculture and finance ministers from 35 of the 37 AGOA-eligible countries in Africa and a 270-strong US delegation led by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The three-day forum will include meetings at the ministerial level, networking possibilities for Africa’s private sector and a chance for civil society to promote African products.

”We need to push African countries to better sell their products on the American market, even if they have strict import rules,” said Boubacar Ba, the economic adviser to Senegal's Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio.

But according to Pape Ibrahima Bayo, production director for PFS and a 27-year veteran of the company, it’s the Americans who have to be pushed.

”If they are ready, we are ready to go to work,” he said.

”We make 25,000 of these steaks every day. I bet there are a lot of Americans who would like our tuna.”

Africa hopes US trade preferences will cast wide net for exports