Foreign, trade, agriculture and finance ministers will attend the two-day forum in Washington beginning Tuesday under the theme "The private sector and trade: powering Africa's growth."

US Secretary of State Condo-leezza Rice will deliver opening remarks at the the fifth annual US-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation forum, commonly referred to as the AGOA forum.

Aside from ministerial talks that would chart new policies to boost trade and economic development, a private-sector forum would consider helping companies "find new markets, new partners and increase profits," Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told reporters.

Among the African nations in the forum are South Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

It was set up following a US law -- The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act -- passed in 2000 to spur economic development in Africa and to expedite the integration of African economies into the world trading system.

The forum "has helped to increase US two-way trade with sub-Saharan Africa and to diversify the range of products being traded," Thomas-Greenfield said.

Two-way trade rose to 60.6 billion dollars in 2005, an increase of about 37 percent from the previous year, she said.

AGOA now expands duty-free access for more than 6,400 products to the US market, and it also provides a framework for US technical aid, she said.

On the textiles front, Thomas-Greenfield said that in addition to the 37 eligible countries, an additional 25 countries had qualified for benefits by establishing a customs system designed to help prevent illegal trans-shipment of apparel exports.

"These countries are permitted to export a wide-range of apparel products to the United States duty-free, subject to various quantitative limits," she said.