Upcoming Event featuring Manchester Trade - 28 July 2010

Stephen Lande, President of Manchester Trade Ltd. is scheduled to speak at the following event, heading discussions on the implications of AGOA on the US - Africa Partnership. Click here to RSVP.

The International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council & the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa

presents 

A Congressional Briefing on

African Agri-Food Exports to the U.S.:

Facing Challenges of Sanitary & Phytosanitary Standards and Tariff-Rate Quotas

U.S. Capitol Visitors Center

(Room to be Confirmed)

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

10:00am – 12:00noon

The African Growth and Opportunity Act has strengthened U.S.-Africa trade ties, but the $1.2.-1.4 billion in food and agricultural goods the U.S. purchases from Africa each year are only a small fraction of the total value of U.S. imports from the continent. Please join the International Food & Agricultural Trade Policy Council and the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa for the release and discussion of two policy briefs, which analyze and seek to improve upon the disappointing performance of African food and agricultural exports to the U.S.

Moderator: 

Charlotte Hebebrand, Chief Executive, IPC

Welcome:

James Kiiru, Commercial Attache, Embassy of Kenya, and Chair, African Diplomatic AGOA Technical Committee

Introductory Remarks: 

Daniel Karanja, Sr. Fellow, Partnership to Cut Hunger & Poverty in Africa

Panel Discussion:

Horticultural Exports from AGOA Countries to the U.S.: Challenges & Considerations - Richard Pasco, Attorney, McLeod, Watkinson & Miller

US Tariff Rate Quotas and AGOA Market Access - David Skully, Professor, Jagiellonian University, Poland

Discussants:

Implications for Farmers & Rural Women - Lawrencia Adams-Simpson, Team Leader, Ghana Research and Advocacy Program and First Ray Almeida Fellow

Moving Forward and Implications for the U.S. and Africa - Steve Lande, President, Manchester Trade LTD

For more information, please visit the event website.

Stephen Lande, President

Stephen Lande is the President of Manchester Trade. He is a distinguished international trade expert in the United States. He had a twelve year career with the Office of the United State Trade Representative as the Senior Trade negotiator and the first of a long-line of Assistant USTRs. In this role Mr. Lande negotiated many bilateral and multilateral trade agreements on behalf of the US Government in Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean.

Mr. Lande is viewed by many to be the "Father” of both the US Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), and an early force in creating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). More recently, he has been directly involved with U.S., Central American and African governments and businesses in advancing the approval of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), improvements to the Caribbean Basin Initiative, the spread bilateral of Free Trade Agreements (FTA’s), and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

Mr. Lande holds M.A. degree from School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.

David Lewis, Vice President

David Lewis is Vice President of Manchester Trade. He is an international trade and investment expert with over 20 years of professional experience advising and working with governments, businesses, and international organizations in the Caribbean and Latin America. His area of expertise include trade liberalization and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), regional integration, investment regimes and investment promotion, export promotion, service sectors, and manufacturing and Free Trade Zone (FTZ) sectors, especially textile and apparel manufacturing in CBI countries. He has been involved in providing technical support to government and business in trade negotiations and integration processes such as CARICOM, NAFTA, FTAA, bilateral FTA's and the WTO. Dr. Lewis has served as Assistant Secretary of State Puerto Rico, Director of USAID / OECS Caribbean Policy Project in Antigua, and Deputy Executive Director of Caribbean/Latin American Action (C/LAA).

Tony Carroll, Vice President

Anthony Carroll is the Vice President of Manchester Trade. He has over 20 years of experience as a corporate lawyer and business advisor in the areas of international trade and investment, with a particular focus on the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. He possesses an extensive background in intellectual property law, first as an in-house lawyer with a venture capital firm specializing in high tech investment, and more recently as an advisor to the international pharmaceutical industry and sovereign and regional governments on TRIPs and WTO accession. In this later capacity, he presently serves as an advisor to the Government of Jordan's WTO Accession Office, reviewing legislative reform and the implementation of an IPR Action Plan designed to build awareness and competence within key stakeholders in Jordan. Mr. Carroll holds a law degree from University of Denver.

Karna Cohen, Policy Director

M. Karna Cohen is an International Development Consultant, currently serving as the Policy Director for Manchester Trade. Ms. Cohen has worked as a specialist and advisor on areas on political economy and U.S. - African affairs. She has lived and worked on five continents, focusing on analysis of highly complex and volatile environments. Ms. Cohen's clients include a range of governmental, non-governmental and private firms with significant influence in business, trade and government policy. Ms. Cohen is pursuing a Ph.D. in International Development, focusing on the evolving relationship between China and the African continent.

Sudha Meiyappan, Trade Analyst

Sudha Meiyappan is Trade Analyst at Manchester Trade. Ms. Meiyappan worked in India on economic impact of waste-to-energy technologies on consumers. She also worked on analysis of trade facilitation measures in India sponsored by the Indian Ministry of Commerce. She now works on Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), preferential trade policies, African trade issues, U.S. - India business development and trade policy, multilateral negotiations and free trade agreements. She holds a masters degree in Economics from Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, India and also a masters degree in International Studies from Oklahoma State University.