Discovery

Since I have previously posted about "importing", you already have a pretty good idea of how I feel about the topic. For the most part, it's way tooooooo complicated and always makes my head hurt! But, today I made a refreshing discovery about the AGOA.

As I was researching importing wool scarves and headbands, I came across a provision under the AGOA. The AGOA is the African Growth and Opportunity Act. The provision, labeled as Category 9, refers to handloomed/handmade/folklore articles/ethnic printed fabrics. The agoa.gov website states, "AGOA provides duty- and quota-free benefits for handloomed, handmade, folklore articles, or ethnic printed fabrics, made in beneficiary sub-Saharan African countries. This provision is known as "Category 9". In Executive Order 13191, the President authorized CITA, after consultation with the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, to consult with beneficiary sub-Saharan African countries and to determine which, if any, particular textile and apparel goods shall be treated as being handloomed, handmade, folklore articles or ethnic printed fabrics.

As of August 2009, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia have been approved under the hand-loomed and the handmade provisions of Category 9."

If this is true, then the scarves and headbands we plan on ordering for the fall will be duty-free. Ahhhh….I like the sounds of that!

Enough of work----I'm SO excited for tonight because Mohey, owner of The Egyptian Cafe and Hooka Bar (one of my absolute favorite restaurants in Broad Ripple), is cooking dinner for some of us. Kelly says he is a phenomenal cook and I have no reservations whatsoever since he cooks all the food at the cafe. Nonetheless, it should be a fabulous friday night….cheers!