Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, has accepted an invitation from the House Ways and Means Committee to testify in favor of legislation that would ease trade between the United States and qualified countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

"We are dealing with countries where poverty is a crushing presence in everyday life," Gramm said. "We have an opportunity by expanding trade to help lift that weight of poverty while promoting free enterprise and democracy."

The Senate Banking Committee has broad jurisdiction over U.S. trade and international economic policy. Chairman Gramm co-sponsored the African Growth and Opportunity Act in the U.S. Senate last year and is hopeful of its passage this year.

"The wonderful thing about trade is that it makes people equal in free transactions of buyers and sellers, producers and consumers," Gramm said. "It creates jobs and opportunities, and we benefit together with those who are engaged in trade with us."

Gramm is scheduled to testify in favor of the legislation before the International Trade Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. The subcommittee is set to meet at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 3, in Room 1100 of the Longworth House Office Building.