Regional agribusiness project

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will lead implementation of the project, which will serve the technical and information needs of USAID Missions, improve the transparency of regional and international markets, address environmental concerns, facilitate U.S. private sector involvement, and provide analytic support to Missions. The project"s first component, market information services, will comprise three activities: (1) publication of Asia Agribusiness News (AAN), a bimonthly newsletter of trade data and market analysis; (2) semi-weekly reports on Asian import markets for selected crops, along with monthly, seasonal, and annual summaries; (3) access to USDA training in market news reporting. Both AAN and the market reports will be sold on a commercial basis, and are expected to be financially sustainable by project end. An environmental service component will address the potential impacts of high-value crop production and agroprocessing, examining such issues as pesticide residues, phytosanitary standards, quarantine regulations, and pollution control. The project will establish mechanisms for accessing and interpreting information on agro-environmental problems and will support additional data collection as needed. This information gathering and interpretation capacity will be transferred to cooperating trade associations in each country, which will then provide this service to members on a fee basis. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will help to address pollution and pesticide concerns, establishing a regional office in Singapore, and then an office in each country"s environmental agency upon request. The third component, trade and investment services, will facilitate transactions between U.S. and Asian agribusinesses. There will be three activities. (1) A Senior Technical Advisory Group of U.S. agribusiness representatives will meet annually with A.I.D. leadership. (2) A referral service will screen investment leads from individual country projects, and list them in a project electronic clearinghouse and a USDA database; USDA"s Going Global Initiative will arrange meetings between U.S. investors and Asian businesspeople, usually at trade shows. (3) Transaction support will take the form of detailed investor/supplier profiles, to be available to both Asian and U.S. businesses. Finally, there will be four analytic support activities: (1) regional analysis -- data collection and analysis concerning the regulatory regimes of major Asian markets (this information will be published in AAN); (2) export market analysis -- assistance to specific Mission clients in developing market penetration strategies; (3) development of a methodology for monitoring and evaluating agribusiness development efforts; and (4) guidance in the design of complementary activities in agribusiness finance and privatization.