Museveni urges stronger state-private sector partnership to drive industrialisation

President Yoweri Museveni has called for a stronger partnership between government and the private sector to speed up industrialisation, deepen regional integration and drive sustainable economic transformation.

The message was delivered on his behalf by the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Henry Musasizi, at the 3rd Annual Regional Industrialisation Conference 2026.

The conference, held under the theme “Unlocking industrial competitiveness through innovation and regional value chain integration,” brought together policymakers, industrialists, financiers and private-sector leaders to discuss practical approaches to industrial development.

Musasizi said industrialisation was central to structural transformation because it created jobs, added value to natural resources, expanded intra-regional trade in manufactured goods and reduced vulnerability to external shocks.

He said Uganda’s industrialisation strategy was anchored in the national development framework, with the accelerated development of industrial parks as a key pillar.

The Kampala Industrial and Business Park at Namanve, which covers about 1,000 hectares, continues to attract investment in manufacturing, logistics, food processing and agro-processing, he said, positioning it as a major production hub for domestic and African markets.

He also pointed to the Sino-Uganda Bio-Industrial Park, covering about 619 acres, which he said hosted roughly 75 factories employing more than 12,000 people.

Musasizi said the government’s industrial parks were designed to serve not only Uganda’s domestic market but also to supply competitive manufactured goods to the wider East African and African markets. Priority opportunities, he said, included agro-processing, leather, textiles, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, steel, construction materials and logistics.

He urged stakeholders to treat East Africa as a shared regional market rather than a set of separate national economies, noting that the region has a consumer market of more than 400 million people, while the African Continental Free Trade Area opens access to about 1.4 billion.

Musasizi reaffirmed Uganda’s commitment to deepening East African Community economic integration, removing non-tariff barriers, operationalising one-stop border posts and expanding access to regional markets. He said achieving Uganda’s long-term ambition of a $500bn (£370bn) economy — a tenfold increase — would require genuine partnership between government and the private sector.

The Minister of State for Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, David Bahati, said East Africa needed to produce, manufacture and export more to strengthen regional competitiveness. He identified power, infrastructure, irrigation, regional connectivity and non-tariff barriers as among the key constraints to be addressed.

The Private Sector Foundation Uganda board chairman, Humphrey Nzeyi, said manufacturing contributed about 9.7% to 11.8% of regional GDP, below the East African Community’s target of 25% by 2032. In Uganda, he said, manufacturing contributed more than 16.5% of GDP and supported about two million direct jobs.

Nzeyi called for practical solutions on long-term industrial finance, non-tariff barriers, infrastructure, energy, standards, illicit trade and cross-border value chain linkages.