Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson is investing heavily in an effort to bring African businesses to his county.
Johnson and Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., announced a $400,000 federal grant Tuesday to open the Prince George’s County Africa Trade Office, which would be the first of its kind in the country.
Officials touted the office as a model for strengthening business relations between small U.S. businesses and those in African nations through education and space-sharing programs.
Meanwhile, the much-anticipated first project to come of Johnson’s October trade mission to Nigeria remains in a holding pattern. When Johnson returned he announced that First City Monument Bank of Lagos, a fast-growing Nigerian bank, had signed a deal with the county to open a subsidiary or affiliate in the county, a deal that was expected to move forward with haste.
On Tuesday, Johnson said bank officials had recently visited the county, as they had in December, and are now looking at opening offices in the county’s 110-acre foreign trade zone along the Interstate 95 corridor.
The Africa Trade Office might eventually join the bank and other companies seeking to take advantage of the no-tariff, wholesale trading that can take place in the trade zone that was created by federal law in 1980, but hasn’t seen much investment until recently, said Patricia Hayes-Parker, who oversees the trade zone.
But for now, when the office opens officially in May, it’ll be housed with county’s economic development corporation in Largo. It’s there that the targeted group of small- and minority business owners will receive training in international trade and build connections in Africa; connections that officials say will help build America’s future as well.
“This is a tremendous foreign policy advantage for America,” Johnson said. It will build trust between the two countries, and “it’s a great way to fight terrorism by creating business opportunities in Africa,” he said.
