President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has insisted on value addition to Uganda’s agricultural products and other raw materials in order to transform the economy.
These remarks were contained in President Museveni State of the Nation Address he delivered today at Parliament where he emphasized that Ugandans must add value to the abundant agricultural raw materials that include coffee, dairy, beef,
fish, fruits and vegetables, cocoa, cereals, poultry, piggery, cotton and tea and noted that these value chains have a combined untapped value addition potential of US 20 billion dollars.
He also said that the second transformational potential is tourism and travel and the country must have a strategy to increase tourist inflows by five-fold, by doubling the average spending and average stay-per-tourist and tourism value chain has a US 50 billion dollar potential.
The third potential, the President said is mineral beneficiation and manufacturing, which include oil and gas the government are finalizing quantification of mineral deposits and therefore there is need for value addition to our minerals like gold, iron ore, phosphates, limestone, tin, copper and cobalt, lithium and uranium whose confirmed value addition potential is
US 25 billion dollars.
The President also said that the government has also finalised plans and signed the first contract to build East Africa’s largest petrochemical industry around the oil and gas reserves.
He also said that there is high potential in the area of science, technology and innovation (STI) including ICT and digital transformation.
