Overview:
Museveni tells UK minister Baroness Chapman that greater investment could drive industrialisation, jobs and trade across Africa.
President Yoweri Museveni has pressed the UK to deepen its investment in Africa, telling a visiting British minister that the continent offers vast opportunities for growth, trade and shared prosperity.
He made the appeal on Thursday while hosting Baroness Chapman, the UK’s Minister of State for International Development and Africa, at State House in Entebbe.
The two discussed how to strengthen ties between Uganda and the UK, with a focus on investment and economic cooperation. Museveni said deeper investment partnerships would help drive value addition, industrialisation, job creation and trade between Africa and Europe.
He welcomed Chapman to Uganda and praised the two countries’ longstanding relationship.
The meeting followed a two-day visit by Chapman in which the UK unveiled more than €245m (about UGX 1 trillion) in new investments across Uganda’s energy, agriculture and transport sectors. These included a €149m UK Export Finance facility for solar-powered irrigation and a groundbreaking ceremony for the Amari Power Transmission Project in Mbarara, backed by the UK’s Gridworks investment platform.
Chapman also met the British Chamber of Commerce Uganda, which represents 63 UK companies operating in the country, and visited the Uganda Virus Research Institute in Entebbe to highlight decades of health research cooperation between the two countries.
The State House meeting was also attended by Hon. Haruna Kasolo Kyeyune, Uganda’s Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Lisa Chesney, the British High Commissioner to Uganda, along with other officials.