Overview:
Uganda and South Sudan will target border delays, electricity exports and a railway link to Juba at a business forum in Kampala on 14 October. Officials put bilateral trade at up to $800m a year.
KAMPALA – Uganda and South Sudan will seek to cut border delays and advance plans for electricity exports and a railway link when the two East African neighbours meet in Kampala next week to boost trade, officials said on Wednesday.
Brig Gen Bonny Bamwiseki, Uganda’s defence attaché at the Uganda Embassy in Juba, South Sudan’s capital, said the meeting would discuss the repair of cross-border roads, the export of electricity from Uganda’s Karuma hydropower plant to South Sudan and a railway line from Uganda to Juba, as well as tariff and non-tariff barriers.
He was speaking at the launch of the second Uganda-South Sudan Business Forum and Exhibition at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kampala. The forum will be held at Mestil Hotel in Kampala on Wednesday 14 October under the theme “Easing the Cost of Doing Business and Unlocking Regional Market Opportunities for Uganda and South Sudan”. Organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it will bring together government officials and private sector players from both countries.
Organisers say businesses on both sides still face border delays, lengthy clearance and product-testing processes, infrastructure constraints and regulatory barriers. The forum will focus on simplifying customs procedures, making better use of one-stop border posts and improving coordination between tax and standards authorities, and it will give the private sector a direct platform with the institutions responsible for trade facilitation.
Work on the power link is already under way. In October 2025, Uganda’s Parliament approved a loan of about $122m from the African Development Fund to finance an electricity export project to South Sudan. The power interconnector of nearly 300km will run from Olwiyo substation in northern Uganda, which is supplied by Karuma, through Bibia near the Elegu border crossing and the South Sudanese border town of Nimule, to Gumbo on the outskirts of Juba. Officials told Parliament that Uganda expects to sell 624GWh of surplus electricity to South Sudan in the first year of operation.
Amb Charles Ssentongo, speaking on behalf of the Permanent Secretary of Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vincent Bagiire Waiswa, said trade between the two countries had averaged between $700m and $800m a year in recent years. He said the trade was driven largely by Ugandan and South Sudanese traders rather than multinational corporations, and that the task now was to push volumes higher by clearing the obstacles that remained.
“We are not starting from zero,” Amb Ssentongo said, adding that the forum would build on commitments already made by Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir.
“We need to find pathways to enhance business between our nations and unlock the much-needed opportunities to attract investment. The conversation must also focus on the regional context beyond our individual countries,” he said.
He encouraged Ugandan traders to work closely with the Uganda Embassy in Juba to understand South Sudan’s regulations, noting that some of the difficulties traders had faced in the past had originated on the Ugandan side.
Amb Ssentongo said Ugandans were now the biggest suppliers of food to South Sudan, running about five markets in Juba, with about 58 trucks of food crossing through the Elegu border post every day. He said all construction materials currently used in Juba came from Uganda, and that Ugandan institutions, including universities and a nursing school, had a strong presence in South Sudan’s health and education sectors.
Brig Gen Bamwiseki said South Sudan had become one of Uganda’s leading trading partners.
“Uganda and South Sudan share a special historical bond, and it is imperative that we strengthen this relationship through increased business partnerships,” he said.
He said Uganda’s exports to South Sudan had grown from $341m in 2019 to $490m in 2024. The forum’s concept note, citing Bank of Uganda data, puts imports from South Sudan at about $21m a year.
Bank of Uganda figures show earnings from exports to South Sudan rose to $73.6m (Shs272.3bn) in June 2026, up from $49.6m (Shs183.5bn) in May. South Sudan first overtook Kenya as Uganda’s leading export destination in January 2025, when Uganda shipped goods worth $55.9m to the country. In June this year, it ranked second only to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Uganda mainly sells grains and flour, sugar, iron, steel, cement, beverages and edible oils to South Sudan, and buys scrap iron, scrap copper and dried fish in return, Brig Gen Bamwiseki said.
Organisers also want to position the two countries as a transit corridor into Sudan and the Central African Republic. Discussions will cover opportunities for young people and women in cross-border trade, security along trade corridors, and the use of the African Continental Free Trade Area to boost bilateral trade.
Brig Gen Bamwiseki said South Sudan offered opportunities for Ugandan businesses in agriculture, mining, fisheries and manufacturing, while Uganda offered openings for South Sudanese investors. He said he hoped a memorandum of understanding on trade would be signed and implemented.
Akuol Abujok Deng, the chargé d’affaires at the South Sudan Embassy in Kampala, said the forum’s theme addressed what mattered most to traders: high costs, delays at the border and limited access to finance.
“Our two countries must continue working together to ensure quicker access to markets and create an environment where the private sector can drive bilateral relations and unlock opportunities,” she said.
Responding to recent reports that a South Sudanese official had ordered Ugandans to leave, she said the statement had been made by a caretaker county commissioner and did not represent the government’s position.
“I can assure our Ugandan sisters and brothers who are in South Sudan that don’t panic,” she said. “Our relationship as two countries is paramount and we value it at the highest order.”
The first edition of the forum was held at the Beijing Hotel in Juba in July 2022, bringing together Uganda’s business community and government representatives from both countries.