President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni on Wednesday, 7 provided an exciting update on the country’s progress on it’s industrialisation program.
The Head of State was addressing the public on the economic progress of the country in the last financial year at kololo.
In a message of hope, he revealed that the country’s industrialization drive is bearing fruit, with many factories being set up. These include eight Government owned industrial parks which are currently operational.
These include: Kampala Industrial and Business Park at Namanve with 125 companies operational, 144 companies under the construction stage and 106 companies at the planning stage, giving a total of 375 factories or companies.
Luzira with 11companies operational; Bweyogerere with 8 companies; Soroti with 2 companies operational and 5 companies at the construction stage; Tian Shan Mbale Park with 16 companies which are operational while 4 are under construction stage; Jinja with one (1) company for assembling electric buses operational; Mbarara for small scale enterprises (SMEs) for which 35 workspaces are occupied; and Kasese where one (1) company is operational and 5 are under the construction stage.
Both Karamoja and Koboko Industrial parks, Museveni saidwill soon start while another three(3) industrial parks are already operational under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement. These include: Liaoshen Kapeeka with 17 companies; MMP Buikwe with 6 companies operational; and Tian Tang Mukono with 4 companies. The total capital investment within the industrial parks so far is US$ 2.93 billion and 98,263 direct jobs created with many more indirect jobs.
In total, Museveni noted that 226 factories are operating within the industrial parks while 303 factories are either under construction or the planning stage. he
He said that the development of industrial parks is one of the vehicles for socio-economic transformation, with the projected creation of 2.5 million jobs in the next five years.
He clarified that the factories in the Industrial Parks, do not include the stand-alone- factories owned and operated by many different investors.
“These are factories that belong to the Mukwano and Mulwana Group, etc. These are a total of 354 factories employing an additional 101,000 people. The total number of factories in Uganda is 4,008, with a total number of employees of 150,685.” he clarified.
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