[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 125 (Friday, June 28, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 31135-31136]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-13905]



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OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES TRADE REPRESENTATIVE

[Docket Number USTR-2019-0006]


Annual Review of Country Eligibility for Benefits Under the 
African Growth and Opportunity Act

AGENCY: Office of the United States Trade Representative.

ACTION: Notice of initiation of review, public hearing, and request for 
comments.

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SUMMARY: The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is 
announcing the initiation of the annual review of the eligibility of 
the sub-Saharan African countries to receive the benefits of the 
African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The AGOA Implementation 
Subcommittee of the Trade Policy Staff Committee (Subcommittee) is 
developing recommendations for the President on AGOA country 
eligibility for calendar year 2020. The Subcommittee requests comments 
for this review and will conduct a public hearing on this matter.

DATES: 
    August 14, 2019 at noon EDT: Deadline for filing requests to appear 
at the August 27, 2019 public hearing, and for filing pre-hearing 
briefs, statements, or comments on sub-Saharan African countries' AGOA 
eligibility.
    August 27, 2019: The Subcommittee will convene a public hearing at 
10:00 a.m. in Rooms 1 and 2, 1724 F Street NW, Washington, DC 20508, to 
receive testimony related to sub-Saharan African countries' eligibility 
for AGOA benefits.
    September 3, 2019: Deadline for filing post-hearing briefs, 
statements, or comments on this matter.

ADDRESSES: USTR strongly prefers electronic submissions made through 
the Federal Rulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov, using 
docket number USTR-2019-0006. Follow the instructions for submitting 
comments in ``Requirements for Submissions'' below. For alternatives to 
on-line submissions, please contact Alan Treat, Deputy Assistant U.S. 
Trade Representative for Africa, at (202) 395-9514.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Please contact Alan Treat, Deputy 
Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Africa, at (202) 395-9514.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background

    AGOA (Title I of the Trade and Development Act of 2000, Pub. L. 
106-200) (19 U.S.C. 2466a et seq.), as amended, authorizes the 
President to designate sub-Saharan African countries as beneficiaries 
eligible for duty-free treatment for certain additional products not 
included for duty-free treatment under the Generalized System of 
Preferences (GSP) (Title V of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2461 et 
seq.) (1974 Act), as well as for the preferential treatment for certain 
textile and apparel articles. The President may designate a country as 
a beneficiary sub-Saharan African country eligible for AGOA benefits if 
he determines that the country meets the eligibility criteria set forth 
in section 104 of AGOA (19 U.S.C. 3703) and section 502 of the 1974 Act 
(19 U.S.C. 2462).
    Section 104 of AGOA includes requirements that the country has 
established or is making continual progress toward establishing, among 
other things:

 A market-based economy
 the rule of law
 political pluralism
 the right to due process
 the elimination of barriers to U.S. trade and investment
 economic policies to reduce poverty
 a system to combat corruption and bribery
 protection of internationally recognized worker rights

In addition, the country may not engage in activities that undermine 
U.S. national security or foreign policy interests or engage in gross 
violations of internationally recognized human rights. Section 502 of 
the 1974 Act provides for country eligibility criteria under GSP. For a 
complete list of the AGOA eligibility criteria and more information on 
the GSP criteria, see section 104 of the AGOA and section 502 of the 
1974 Act.
    Section 506A of the 1974 Act requires the President to monitor and 
annually review the progress of each sub-Saharan African country in 
meeting the foregoing eligibility criteria in order to determine if a 
beneficiary sub-Saharan African country should continue to be eligible, 
and if a sub-Saharan African country that currently is not a 
beneficiary, should be designated as a beneficiary. If the President 
determines that a beneficiary sub-Saharan African country is not making 
continual progress in meeting the eligibility requirements, the 
President must terminate the designation of the country as a 
beneficiary sub-Saharan African country. The President also may 
withdraw, suspend, or limit the application of duty-free treatment with 
respect to specific articles from a country if he determines that it 
would be more effective in promoting compliance with AGOA eligibility 
requirements than terminating the designation of the country as a 
beneficiary sub-Saharan African country.
    For 2019, the President designated the following 39 countries as 
beneficiary sub-Saharan African countries:

1. Angola
2. Benin
3. Botswana
4. Burkina Faso
5. Cabo Verde
6. Cameroon
7. Central African Republic
8. Chad
9. Comoros
10. Republic of Congo
11. Cote d'Ivoire
12. Djibouti
13. Eswatini
14. Ethiopia
15. Gabon
16. The Gambia
17. Ghana
18. Guinea
19. Guinea-Bissau
20. Kenya
21. Lesotho
22. Liberia
23. Madagascar
24. Malawi
25. Mali
26. Mauritius
27. Mozambique
28. Namibia
29. Niger
30. Nigeria
31. Rwanda (AGOA apparel benefits suspended effective July 31, 2018)
32. Sao Tome & Principe
33. Senegal
34. Sierra Leone
35. South Africa
36. Tanzania
37. Togo
38. Uganda
39. Zambia

    The President did not designate following sub-Saharan African 
countries as beneficiary sub-Saharan African countries for 2019:

1. Burundi
2. Democratic Republic of Congo
3. Equatorial Guinea (graduated from GSP)
4. Eritrea
5. Mauritania
6. Seychelles (graduated from GSP)
7. Somalia
8. South Sudan
9. Sudan
10. Zimbabwe

    The Subcommittee is seeking public comments to develop 
recommendations to the President in connection with the annual review 
of sub-Saharan African countries' eligibility for AGOA benefits. The 
Secretary of Labor may consider comments related to the child labor 
criteria to prepare the U.S. Department of Labor's report on child 
labor as required under section 504 of the 1974 Act.

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II. Notice of Public Hearing

    The Subcommittee will hold a hearing at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, 
August 27, 2019, to receive testimony related to sub-Saharan African 
countries' eligibility for AGOA benefits. The hearing will be held in 
Rooms 1 and 2, 1724 F Street NW, Washington, DC 20508, and will be open 
to the public and to the press. USTR will make a transcript of the 
hearing available on www.regulations.gov approximately two weeks after 
the hearing date.
    USTR must receive your written requests to present oral testimony 
at the hearing and pre-hearing briefs, statements, or comments by noon 
on Wednesday, August 14, 2019. You must make the intent to testify 
notification in the ``type comment'' field under docket number USTR-
2019-0006 on the www.regulations.gov website and you should include the 
name, address, telephone number and email address, if available, of the 
person presenting the testimony. You should attach a summary of the 
testimony by using the ``upload file'' field. The name of the file also 
should include who will be presenting the testimony. Remarks at the 
hearing will be limited to no more than five minutes to allow for 
questions from the Subcommittee. You should submit all documents in 
accordance with the instructions in section III below.

III. Requirements for Submissions

    You must submit requests to testify, written comments, and pre-
hearing and post-hearing briefs by the applicable deadlines set forth 
in this notice. You must make all submissions in English via http://www.regulations.gov, using Docket Number USTR-2019-0006. USTR will not 
accept hand-delivered submissions. To make a submission using http://www.regulations.gov, enter the appropriate docket number in the `search 
for' field on the home page and click `search.' The site will provide a 
search-results page listing all documents associated with this docket. 
Find a reference to this notice by selecting `notice' under `document 
type' in the `filter results by' section on the left side of the screen 
and click on the link entitled `comment now.' The regulations.gov 
website offers the option of providing comments by filling in a `type 
comment' field or by attaching a document using the `upload file(s)' 
field. The Subcommittee prefers that you provide submissions in an 
attached document and note `see attached' in the `type comment' field 
on the online submission form. At the beginning of the submission, or 
on the first page (if an attachment) include the following text (in 
bold and underlined): (1) ``2019 AGOA Eligibility Review''; (2) the 
relevant country or countries; and (3) whether the document is a 
`written comment', `notice of intent to testify,' `pre-hearing brief,' 
or `post-hearing brief.' Submissions should not exceed thirty single-
spaced, standard letter-size pages in twelve-point type, including 
attachments. Include any data attachments to the submission in the same 
file as the submission itself, and not as separate files.
    You will receive a tracking number upon completion of the 
submission procedure at http://www.regulations.gov. The tracking number 
is confirmation that regulations.gov received the submission. Keep the 
confirmation for your records. USTR is not able to provide technical 
assistance for the website. USTR may not consider documents you do not 
submit in accordance with these instructions. If you are unable to 
provide submissions as requested, please contact Alan Treat, Deputy 
Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Africa, at (202) 395-9514, to 
arrange for an alternative method of transmission. General information 
concerning USTR is available at www.ustr.gov.

IV. Business Confidential Submissions

    If you ask USTR to treat information you submitted as business 
confidential information (BCI), you must certify that the information 
is business confidential and you would not customarily release it to 
the public. You must clearly designate BCI by marking the submission 
``BUSINESS CONFIDENTIAL'' at the top and bottom of the cover page and 
each succeeding page, and indicating, via brackets, the specific 
information that is BCI. Additionally, you must include `Business 
Confidential' in the `type comment' field. For any submission 
containing BCI, you must separately submit a non-confidential version, 
i.e., not as part of the same submission with the confidential version, 
indicating where BCI has been redacted. USTR will post the non-
confidential version in the docket and it will be open to public 
inspection.

V. Public Viewing of Review Submissions

    USTR will make public versions of all documents relating to these 
reviews available for public viewing pursuant to 15 CFR 2017.4, in 
Docket Number USTR-2019-0006 at http://www.regulations.gov upon 
completion of processing, usually within two weeks of the relevant due 
date or date of the submission.

VI. Petitions

    At any time, any interested party may submit a petition to USTR 
with respect to whether a beneficiary sub-Saharan African country is 
meeting the AGOA eligibility requirements. An interested party may file 
a petition through www.regulations.gov, under docket number USTR-2019-
0006.

Edward Gresser,
Chair of the Trade Policy Staff Committee, Office of the United States 
Trade Representative.
[FR Doc. 2019-13905 Filed 6-27-19; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 3290-F9-P