The Prime Minister, Robinah Nabbanja has appealed to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to allow more Ugandan products access to the country’s market.   

She said Uganda is the best tourist destination in the East African region, which she said was confirmed by this year’s CNN report, and it is the third best rewarding economy to invest in Africa, which, she said, was also confirmed by Oxford Economics report 2023.  

Nabbanja said Uganda offers 100 per cent repatriation of profits and is the second-best bio-diverse country in Africa. In 2022, she explained, Uganda was also listed among the safest in terms of security in the region and told the investors that they could be sure that they would be safe, together with their property in the country.

The Prime Minister was on Tuesday, October 10, 2023, speaking at the opening of a four-day Uganda-UAE annual business forum that opened at Speke Resort Munyonyo in Kampala.   

The forum attracted a delegation of businesspeople from Abu Dhabi and the UAE in general, led by Rasheed Abdulkarim Al Blooshi, the Undersecretary of the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development. At least 23 UAE-based companies, according to Uganda’s ambassador to UAE, Zaake Kibedi, were represented at the forum.  

President Yoweri Museveni is expected to attend the forum on Wednesday.

Other incentives to consider include Uganda being the fastest-growing economy in the EAC, with a Gross Domestic Product of over $40bn, as per the World Bank 2021 report.  

Uganda also offers quota and tariff-free access to regional and world markets, with market access of 300m people in EAC, over 600m people in the Comesa region and 1.3bn people in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

She said Uganda also has access to the United States markets of over 600 products under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and other trade deals with the European Union, China and India.

“I assure you that you can access all these markets when you invest here,” she explained.  

According to the Prime Minister, Uganda also offers 100% of project ownership for foreign companies and boasts of having the youngest population in the region, with an average of 17.5 years.    

“Our young population is therefore highly trainable and adaptable to labour demands; we also have the lowest labour cost in the region, which stands at about $400 per year.   

All the machinery for value addition, she said, attract zero tax import duty and these include a ten-year tax holiday for all the manufacturers of consumer and capital goods.   

 She said that all goods imported for use in hotels and the tourism sector attract zero import duty, which refers to full exemption on import duties.

“It is a big opportunity for us to host such a powerful delegation of investors, our target is to link them to our local traders,” she said and applauded President Museveni for taking an interest in attracting investors from the UEA.

She also commended Zaake for working tirelessly to link the business communities of both countries. “This is the only way we can promote business, when they come and tell what they demand, the quality and we show them what we have so that we can get markets for our products,” she explained. 

The forum is sponsored by Modern Group which has a chain of businesses in Uganda. The companies that registered to send representatives at the forum include Fibrain Group, Net Carbon Vision, Reportage Properties, Al Otenbha Group, Y9 Bank, Soleil Power, VFS Group, Gulf Contractors, Raz Mohammed Trading, Universal Multipurpose, Enterprises Limited, ADNOC, Shar Jah Chamber of Commerce, One Mobility Group, Global Gases Group, Amea Power, General Petroleum, Lulu Group, Metro Cement, among others. 

Kibedi said that Uganda and UAE have signed a number of Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) that include promotion and reciprocal protection of investments, avoidance of double taxation, agricultural cooperation and economic cooperation. The two countries, he said, were yet to sign one about sharing experience on government development and modernization. The function was attended by Henry Mayega, Uganda’s consular general in Dubai.   

Among the local agencies that were represented included Kampala Capital City Authority which was represented by the Executive Director, Dorothy Kisaka, Uganda Investment Authority, Uganda Registration Services Bureau, Uganda National Bureau of Standards, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, officials from the Uganda embassy in Abu Dhabi, among others.