The appeal was made by President Yoweri Museveni in a speech read for him by the Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister, Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu, at the 2019 President’s Export Awards Dinner at Protea Skyz Naguru Hotel recently. “It is through dialogue and facilitation that a good working environment is created to support growth,” Museveni said. He applauded the outperforming exporters for the exemplary work, noting that the Government remains committed to creating and sustaining a good environment that will make Uganda a middle-income status and beyond.
This, he said, is done through prioritizing infrastructure development by investing in energy, railway and road networks to enable entrepreneurs to get their goods to the market in a secure and timely manner and facilitate the movement of workers. He retaliated the need to end ‘slavery’ of exporting raw materials by focusing on value addition and industrialisation. This, he said, will also help the country curb exportation of jobs to other countries. Museveni pledged the government’s commitment to continue designing policies and regulations that encourage and enhance Uganda’s business development to make locally produced product competitiveness in the region.
The Uganda Export Promotions Board executive director, Elly Twineyo Kamugisha, said the country’s export earnings grew to $3.74b (sh13.6 trillion) as of November 2019, owing to market and product diversification and the good work done by exporters. He noted that although the country still has a trade deficit, it will reduce once the Government completes the construction of major infrastructure projects, which are contributing to the huge import bill.
Kamugisha noted that government procurement of imports has over the last three years grown by 120% because of mega infrastructure projects. “Our huge import bill is for machines and equipment for the factories being established. Once the factories are established, we will start producing for the domestic and export market.
It is also good that we have started mining our own iron ore so iron, meaning the iron and steel industry will also soon stop importing raw materials. Once those are achieved, the import bill will come down and exports will increase,” Kamugisha said.
Trade minister Amelia Kyambadde applauded exporters for performing better than last year and urged them to work harder to enable the country to attain the middle-income status.