Mbabazi courts Chinese investors

By vision reporter

The Government is scouting for Chinese companies to take over contracts for infrastructural projects. Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi said the companies would source the funds on their own and get paid when revenues from oil and gas start flowing in.

“Our government is concentrating on a few priorities due to insufficient funding and China is to fund a number of these,” Mbabazi said at the conclusion of his one-week visit to China where he had been invited by the ruling Community Party of China.

He made the disclosure during a meeting with officials of China Machinery Engineering Corporation, a state-owned company, in Beijing on Saturday.

The meeting at the corporation headquarters was also attended by state minister Charles Bakabulindi, senior presidential advisor Jacqueline Mbabazi, Uganda’s ambassador to China, Charles Madibo Wagidoso and the commissioner for patriotism clubs in the Office of the President, Lt. Col. Henry Masiko.

Mbabazi said the framework to source Chinese companies was reached during bilateral talks between President Yoweri Museveni and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping in Durban, South Africa.

The two presidents were attending a summit of BRICS, the association of five major emerging national economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, three months ago.

Planned medium-term projects in Uganda include four hydro-electric power stations such as the 600MW Ayago and 140MW Isimba stations along River Nile.

Another 21 roads across the country are earmarked for upgrading to bitumen standard.

Li Chaoyang, the CMEC vice-president and senior engineer, expressed the company’s interest to undertake projects in infrastructure, telecommunications, agriculture and health.

“As Uganda develops, your demand for energy and power will also increase. There is need for us to cooperate in health in addition to education as we exercise our corporate social responsibility” Chaoyang said.

Earlier, Mbabazi met Ugandan students studying in various institutions in China. According to their President, Dennis Birungi, there are 600 students, with 300 sponsored by the Chinese government.

He called for a framework to attract the students back home after their studies.

Mbabazi later met officials of Huawei Technologies, a private company based in Beijing.

The company was established in 1987 and entered the Uganda market in 2001. Guo Junfeng, the Huawei vice president, said the company had partnered with Makerere University to train local information and communications technology professionals.