At least 22 industrial parks will be established across the country in Uganda Investment Authority’s (UIA) effort to create jobs and ease land access for both local and foreign investors.
These parks will further introduce new research technologies and enhance value addition to boost Uganda’s exports. So far, the functioning parks include Kampala Industrial and Business Park, Soroti and another in Kasese.
Kampala industrial park situated in Namanve along Kampala – Jinja road has since its establishment opened doors for large scale investment in various sectors including ICT, agro processing, mineral processing, logistics and freight as well as tourism. Covering a total of 2,200 acres of land, at least 260 prospective investors have since been allocated land in the park.
According to Dr. Frank Sebbowa the UIA Executive Director, 20 industries are already operating in the Namanve situated park with direct employment 9,200 Ugandans. Eighty two other projects are still
under constructions creating an additional 17,000 indirect short term technical jobs while 158 industries are still concluding on their documentation process.
Notable operational projects include; Roofings Ltd, Kyagalanyi Coffee, Victoria Seeds, Century Bottling (Coca Cola), Three Ways Shipping, Orion Computers among others. A few of those in their advanced infrastructure development stage include; Toyota, Mukwano Industries, Steel and Tube Industries, DFCU Bank, Tian Tang.
“At full capacity, the industrial park will become the biggest industrial hub in Uganda with 270 industries employing 200,000 people.
The total investment capacity is estimated at 3.5 trillion dollars and the industries will be contributing over USD 540 million in taxes per annum by 2020,” said Dr. Sebbowa.
He mentioned that government will further develop the upcountry parks to equally make them attractive to investors. For this to happen, Dr. Sebbowa says that access to infrastructure such as electricity, roads, water, and railway must be realized.
“We also need to preserve security in the country side since nobody wants to invest in an unstable environment. However, the media has a role to play in this by avoiding negative reporting.”
Government intends to inject USD 151M in setting up infrastructure but in the short term, UIA is engaging government entities with larger budgets to fast track infrastructure development.