{"id":45949,"date":"2026-09-19T17:00:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T15:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=45949"},"modified":"2026-09-19T17:00:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T15:00:30","slug":"sadc-welcomes-extension-of-us-agoa-trade-programme","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sadc-welcomes-extension-of-us-agoa-trade-programme\/","title":{"rendered":"SADC welcomes extension of US AGOA trade programme \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has welcomed the extension of the United States (US) African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) to December 2028, highlighting the decision as a critical boost for regional trade, investment, and economic stability.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>According to a statement issued by the SADC Secretariat in Gaborone, the extension provides essential market certainty for Southern African exporters, investors, and workers who rely on duty-free access to the United States market for more than 7 000 products.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The regional bloc noted that the additional timeframe will enable member states, such as Lesotho, which has leveraged AGOA to build a thriving apparel industry and generate thousands of manufacturing jobs, to expand local productive capacity, strengthen regional supply chains, and diversify export industries.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>SADC highlighted that the extended AGOA framework will complement broader continental economic integration initiatives, including the African Continental Free Trade Area and the Tripartite Free Trade Area, by supporting value addition across key sectors such as agriculture, textiles, minerals, and automotive manufacturing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica\/SADC&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":35422,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,44],"class_list":["post-45949","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Extension of US AGOA framework to 2028 will boost regional trade: SADC","published_date":"2026-09-19 14:52:16","news_description":"Extension of US AGOA framework to 2028 will boost regional trade: SADC","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45950,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45949\/revisions\/45950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=45949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}