ADDIS ABABA, Oct 28 (Reuters) – In a crowded Addis Ababa factory, Finoteselam Nigussie’s needle plunges in-and-out of the gauzy white cloth she deftly guides through a sewing machine.
Like thousands of other Ethiopian women, stitching shawls for export to the United States pays the 40-year-old textile worker’s rent and her daughter’s school fees.
Now though, Finoteselam’s job is in danger as the United States ponders suspending Ethiopia’s duty-free market status, citing abuses and a growing famine in the war-ravaged northern Tigray region.
Suspension of benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) would threaten Ethiopia’s aspirations to become a light manufacturing hub and dent hard-won economic gains in a nation once a byword for hunger and poverty.
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