Fellow citizens,
Exporters and
Our allies in the markets we work with
As we cross over to the year 2025, I thank you for your consistent support, kindness and encouragement in the year 2024. In the year we are ending today, we have tested our four-pillar model and it is working and beginning to produce results, partly the reason we had revenue increases in some of the markets we have targeted in the year ending December 31, 2024:
On markets where we work to stop blind trade for our firms, we conducted research and renewed some of the trade agreements such as the Serbia one that was signed in September of 1963 by the late Mayanja Nkangi. This is in order to allow product entry into this market at a reduced rate. We also signed off an air service agreement to allow flights – both passenger and cargo for our airlines with that country.
We reached out to Southern China in April and appointed a Trade Representative who has given us huge orders of Simsim, cassava, and coffee that we are working on. We focused on the markets of DRC, Nigeria, and the UK which now have Trade Representatives and we are closing the year with advanced efforts to open trade Hubs in these locations. It is the same with South Africa, Greece, the cities of Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, and some cities in Russia, where possible.
At PACEID, our markets department has orders averaging USD459m on its database whose supply is still an issue. This is partly on account of the level of organization, the number of quantities needed, and the pricing; but by God’s grace we will work through them and get there.
On Standards to achieve global compliance, we have worked hard to ensure institutions involved in food production supervision, food preparation, and export work together to create a singular food safety ombudsman – an Inspector general of food of sorts. My assumption is that once this authority, soon to be called the Food and Agricultural Agency (FARA) is created this coming year, the current negative reporting of our food by the media, its certification, and export, will be managed given reporters will have one place to direct their questions. These reports have been difficult for us in the new markets we open. There will also be one house of professionals in the area of animals, animal health feeds, plant health, chemicals used for food growing and preservation, equipment used in veterinary services, and technology improvements, – that house of professionals well-led, will provide credible investigation in these allegations about our food and give our citizens and the world, timely answers. The current institutional disparity in food safety doesn’t not give confidence to the sector which is why the private sector struggles to get a good service from the system.
On Infrastructure on land, water, and in the air, we have supported fruits and vegetables and coffee sectors by setting up a center of excellence at Entebbe airport. I am hoping they will use this to demonstrate the best processing and possible export standards. We have also negotiated lower cargo rates for the regional markets where there is no road or rail infrastructure and we continue to work on raising financing for aerodromes, manufacturing, and processing facilities of the 13 products we export such as Sim Sim, cassava, dairy, beef, fish etc. We closed the year with the opening of the AfCFTA market for products in Nigeria.
We are working on airline charters and travel and food content in tourism through the docuseries we will commission on Uganda, this January. These will be viewed in the US, Asia, and Europe so we can estimate how much awareness created for arrivals and more orders for Ugandan exporting firms.
Our biggest constraint in all this has been due to a lack of regulatory authority to enforce timely decisions in support of the private sector. Meeting people at a level of conviction is good and this has been my mantra since I became conscious of our country’s problems in 1992 as a university student. You must use influence and teaching to bring change, (because change is emotional, physical, and psychological; change is hard and does not easily become accepted given that every inch of it forces acknowledgment of a new reality). That you should do it however long it might take I accept.
But there are too many deliberate delays that hurt our country’s reputation and erode the trust and confidence we have built with our allies. These delays make us uncompetitive as other countries fly past us where we have spent much time cultivating relations. We could do better if there were a genuine effort to build a collective thrust of what matters for the country in terms of jobs. But with God being our Help, we will get there. We won’t give in to these obstructions, intimidating some of our exporters and suppliers and lying. Those who do these things should know they harm their own body because Uganda is one body. They could work in a self-enlightened interest to support this work, knowing, in the end, it touches their own families, their farmers, and exporters. We will keep teaching, training, engaging, and counseling, till we build a new culture for our country. We don’t have options beyond this!
On export credit support for orders and invoices of exporters, we have created a new way to underwrite export orders. For all our 62 exporters on our initial database, the first ten were front-loaded before December 25, 2024, as test cases. I thank God we are now moving. This is despite the limited Knowledge in the credit support area and a not-so-healthy private sector environment on matters of risk and trust. The institutions we are working with from banks to collateral managers, insurers, etc. along with the young people who are doing this work, should be commended for this groundbreaking tool to support our export firms, quickly.
In 2025, we need a double portion of the same support and encouragement you have accorded us in 2024. Because we have learned in the last two years, that it isn’t easy and perhaps it was a shallow presumption, that we would find ready and willing firms and products of the best global standard in the right quantities, we are now adopting measures in 2025.
We will focus:
-
Raising funding for product aggregation centers in four corners of the country where it is easier to add value, finance, and ship to markets in a consistent way. The export markets are asking for this approach to make us reliable suppliers. I think we went to the luxurious portions of a tree, and its leaves, (the market) and didn’t know the roots weren’t strong enough yet (production). We are now returning to these roots to create capacity there and assure our markets.
2. We will also begin work on data gathering and kick-off analytics. This is so we can get the best pricing of our commodities at a global level. We cannot compete if we can’t price ourselves well on the world market. We need all the support of the young people who are in this area.
3. We will also start work on bilateral trade agreements Uganda has signed in the last 62 years with all her allies and see which of these can be fully utilized to give our country better market entry options for products.
I specifically thank President Yoweri Museveni for believing in us and for keeping with us on this long journey and for supporting these renewed ideas on how to sell Ugandan products, how to increase farmer earnings, and along the way, improve manufacturing and value addition to our products.
I also thank all the ministries and Government departments that cooperate with us to do better for Uganda’s exports. I thank many of you, our export community members for the confidence you have placed in these reforms since we began on March 16, 2022. I thank our trade envoys in over ten locations of the world and most of all, our young people at PACEID. These groups are the ones who bear the brunt of my pressure to get things moving daily.
Thank you all and have a great 2025.
END