Kenya's response to AGOA

AGOA’s impact on Kenya’s exports has been nothing short of impressive. Growing at an average of 2% a year before AGOA’s passage, Kenya’s exports to the US exploded to a growth level of 28% a year until 2005.

Most of this growth was fueled by the textiles and apparel sector, which grew at as much as 44% between 2001-05. However, this was from a respectable pre-AGOA 16% annual growth rate.

The end of the multi-fiber arrangement in 2005 led to a collapse in growth, culminating in a full-on decline in textile/apparel exports with the on set of the US’s recession in 2009.

However, leading non-textile/apparel exports softened the decline in total exports by steadily growing at between 7-10% over the same 2006-11 period.