Gold back on top as Uganda’s leading export commodity

Gold is back on top of Uganda’s export commodities after nearly a year of a lull due to a standoff between the government and exporters over tax.

According to the March 2024 Ministry of Finance Performance of the Economy Report, Uganda earned an average of $228.4m per month from gold exports between February 2023 and February 2024, the biggest from any single export commodity.

This contributed 37 percent of total export income, returning a value of $2.7b, which was more than a third of the $7.4b earned as a total from all exports.

In recent years, 44 percent of Uganda’s export income has been coming from gold. However, after the government imposed a  $100 charge on every kilogramme of refined gold instead of the 5 percent and 10 percent of the value of exported refined and unrefined gold at the start of the 2022/23 financial year, Uganda’s gold exports declined.

But this was later suspended by the government.

According to the ministry report, Uganda’s total export earnings during February 2024 increased by 12.0% to USD 633.00 million from USD 565.40 million in January 2024.

This increase was mainly due to higher earnings from non-coffee formal exports such as gold, cotton, simsim, flowers and oil re-exports following increases in their respective volumes during the month.

 Similarly, merchandise imports increased by 20.7% to USD 909.24 million in February 2024 from USD 753.54 million in the previous month. This increase was mainly attributed to higher volumes and increased values for both oil and non-oil imports particularly commodities under the categories of mineral products (excluding petroleum products) and machinery equipment, vehicles & accessories during the month.

As a result of the increase in imports being bigger than the increase in export earnings, the trade deficit with the rest of the world amounted to USD 276.25 million which is 46.8% higher than the USD 188.14 million deficit registered in January 2024.