The Africans' interest is to guard preferential export rules enshrined in the temporary Af

rican Growth and Opportunity Act, passed by Congress in 2,000. Tariff-free exports of some 6,000 goods from Africa to the United States are boosting trade and investment in southern Africa. Lesotho's fast-growing textile industry depends almost entirely on Chinese investment in factories to make clothes for sale in the United States. The region also wants more access to America's markets for fruit, beef and other agricultural goods.

American interest lies mainly in South Africa, by far the largest economy in the region. Services account for 60% of its GDP, and it increasingly dominates the rest of Africa in banking, information technology, telecom, retail' and other areas. Just as British banks, such as Barclays, have moved their African headquarters to South Africa over the past year, American investors see the country as a platform. to the rest of the continent.

Agreeing investment rules and resolving differences on intellectual property rights are the most urgent issues. American drug firms want to be part of the fast expansion in South Africa of production of anti-retroviral drugs, used against AIDS. By 2007 South Africa alone expects 1.2m patients to take the drugs daily. The country might be the world's biggest exporter of anti-AIDS drugs within a few years. Striking a bilateral deal now should make American investments easier.

But Mr. Zoellick's greater concern is for multilateral trade talks that stalled in Cancun, Mexico, in September. Alec Erwin, his South African counterpart, helped to organize the G20 group of poor and middle-income countries that opposed joint American-EU proposals there; he is widely tipped to take over as head of the World Trade Organization late next year, and would be a useful ally.

So Mr. Zoellick is trying to charm his African partner by agreeing to drop support for most of a group of issues (known as "Singapore" issues) that jammed up the talks at Cancun, and were opposed by poor countries; he says he also favors abolishing export subsidies in America--though only if Japan and the EU agree to do the same. That would please African exporters who say such subsidies destroy markets for their goods.

Mr. Zoellick's efforts to make more friends may be paying off. Even though America has treated Africa very shabbily on trade in the past, Mr. Erwin hints it is easier doing business with America than with Europe or Japan. A small sign, but perhaps a telling one.

It can be inferred from the first paragraph that ______.

A．6,000 goods from Africa are tariff-free to American countries

B．preferential export rules are interesting to southern Africans

C．most clothes found in the U.S. are actually made by Chinese

D．Lesotho is willing to export more agricultural goods to the U.S.