Uganda’s exports up by 40.6% on year in March—report

Uganda’s merchandise exports rose by 40.6% in March from a year earlier, the latest official figures show.

The finance ministry’s performance of the economy report for April 2025 says the exports reached $899.10 million (about shillings 3.269 trillion) in March 2025, up from $639.63 million (about shillings 2.325 trillion) in March 2024.

This increase was mainly due to higher earnings from coffee, cocoa beans, mineral products, sugar, and fish and its products.

The report indicates that on a month-on-month basis, exports grew by 7.3%, from $838.18 million in February 2025 to $899.10 million in March 2025.

Merchandise imports grew by 7.3%, from $1,037.21 million in March 2024 to $1,112.72 million in March 2025, mainly due to higher project-related government imports and non-oil private sector imports.

Similarly, the import bill rose by 25.4% on a monthly basis, from $887.07 million in February 2025 to $1,112.72 million in March 2025.

While reading his budget speech for the financial year 2024/25, finance minister Matia Kasaija said efforts to increase value addition to exports had continued to yield positive results.

“Exports of manufactured products have continued to be significant contributors of export earnings,” he said.

Kasaija noted that in the financial year of 2023/24, efforts to increase export performance were strengthened through investing in targeted value addition initiatives and implementing several enabling trade policies.

President Yoweri Museveni has on many occasions said that Uganda is going to be mainly an exporting country.

“Ugandans keep buying, but we need to sell more. We need to eliminate the shame of importing things we can make locally here in Uganda. We earn $5b in exports of goods and services but import $700b of goods and services,” he said at a function in 2017.

He also said that Uganda’s economy remains raw materials-based, calling for the need to add value to all raw materials such as coffee, cotton, timber, cocoa, fish products, gold, iron ore, copper, vermiculite, phosphates, petrochemicals, maize, bananas, etc., and stopping to export them unprocessed.

“By doing this, our economy will jump to $550b instead of the mere $55.2b,” he said.