UAE is the East African country’s biggest trading partner in the region, with exports growing from $300 million when diplomatic relations were established in 2009, to $1.85 billion in 2020.
According to a leading government official, Uganda is looking to strengthen trade ties with the GCC, which will also be used as a springboard to increase cooperation with China and the Far East.
Odrek Rwabwogo, senior advisor to the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, told Arabian Business the country’s focus has shifted from European markets to the Middle East.
He said: “We are not abandoning the European market. We are instead diversifying to get more shelf space for Ugandan producers in both new and traditional market segments.
“We recognise the prosperity in the Middle East right now, the growing affluence and wealth and consumption and we really believe that Uganda has a huge potential to offer goods and service to the Middle East.”
The UAE is the East African country’s largest trading partner in the region, with exports growing from $300 million when diplomatic relations were established in 2009, to $1.85 billion in 2020.
Exports are mainly precious minerals, high value crops and labour – in the UAE alone, there is currently a 60,000-strong Ugandan diaspora.
But Rwabwogo revealed plans were also in place to further promote the fruit and vegetables grown in the country, which are already exported readily to markets across Europe.
He explained: “We grow food all the year round. You consume in the Middle East a lot of fruit and vegetables and we think that, by growing that segment in Uganda, we strengthen production capabilities of many more people and that is really what shared prosperity is.
“That is what brought us to the Dubai Expo, to showcase some of the things that have changed over time in the country.”
And it was certainly a successful visit to the World Fair, which is currently being held in Dubai through to March 31 next year.
A number of new business deals were signed, worth $650m, which included investment in sectors such as, renewable energy, transport, agriculture, mineral processing and manufacturing medical kits.
And while welcoming the additional investment, Rwabwogo admitted the strategy included attracting the interests of countries further east.
He said: “For the lack of a better word, we’re trying to build this relationship with the Middle East as a stepping stone, as a learning curve, to be able to exploit the larger, bigger markets of the Far East and Europe.
“We think that the stronger relationships we can build four hours from China, which is the Middle East, would allow China to source goods from there that have come from us.”
Uganda is looking to attract $4bn in new investment to propel its post-pandemic recovery, according to Robert Mukiza, director general of the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), who spoke recently while in Dubai.
The visit to Expo saw the UIA ink an agreement with UAE-based Connect, which will invest $500m in the country on projects including a renewable energy development.
The UIA also agreed to work with Dubai’s Worldera Corporation, which is looking to plough $50m into areas such as mineral processing, agriculture and education.
While China-based Wondfo Biotech will invest $50m in a pharmaceutical plant in Uganda; and global financing outfit Modha Investments agreed a deal which will see over 5,000 jobs created for farmers in Uganda.
Rwabwogo said: “These deals won’t just be agriculture, manufacturing and oil, but they will introduce human cultural relations that will strengthen prosperity and stability of the Great Lakes, by working with Uganda.”
He added that further cooperation is sought in terms of attracting tourists to the country and in developing infrastructure in Uganda.
Rwabwogo said currently there are around 6,000 hotel rooms in the country, but stressed that some 50,000 were needed in order to allow people to visit Uganda and stay longer.
He said: “We need to build roads into the game parks, into these processing places, we need more airports and expanded capacity at the one airport we currently have, which has about 4-5,000m of runway. We want to build five airports across the country.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Finance World staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)