UIA creates over 3,000 jobs

By Barbara Among

THE Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) licensed 40 projects in April, creating about 3,490 jobs, 50% less than the 6,986 created in March.


Announcing the investment figures, UIA executive director Maggie Kigozi said there was a 50% rise in the number of projects created in the last one month.

The estimated planned investments from the 40 projects in April are $106m (about sh244b) up from $74m (about sh170b) in March.

Out of the 40 projects, Ugandans topped with a planned investment value of $63m (about sh144b), constituting 53% and about 1,711 jobs.

Chinese came second with seven projects licensed, worth $12m (about sh27.6b), with a planned employment value of 593 jobs.

Most of the Chinese investments are in the construction and manufacturing sectors.

Newcomers, Rwanda and Turkey, each invested $9m (about sh20b) in the country in April.

While Rwanda invested in the financial and real estate sector, Turkey invested in a single construction project.

India, UK, Netherlands, Kenya, Pakistan and Canada, are the other countries that had projects licensed.

Sector totals for March and April showed that the finance and real estate sectors had planned investments of $55.8m (about sh128b), up from $48.4m (about sh111b) in March and were followed by the construction sector with $22m (about sh50.9b).

The manufacturing sector came third with $15m (about sh34.5b), creating 765 jobs in April, followed by agriculture, hunting, forestry and fisheries with investment worth $10m (about sh23b), creating 170 jobs.

Other sectors that registered investments last month included transport, storage and communication.

Kigozi, however, said the skyrocking inflation, now standing at 14.1%, is a cause of concern to UIA.

Statistics from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics at the end of April show that inflation has risen to 14.1% from 5.5% last year.

The rise was triggered by the rising fuel and food prices, leading to protests.

On the oil sector, she said the Government had lifted the moratorium on investment in the petroleum industry, paving way for Tullow, CNOOC and Total to proceed with the development of the oil and gas resources.

UIA is also targeting Ugandans in the diaspora and about 300 small and medium enterprise ideas have been developed.

Remittances from Ugandans abroad have been increasing since 2008 from $732m (about sh1.6 trilion) in 2008 to $778m (about sh1.78 trillion) in 2009 and increased to sh980m (about sh2.25 trillion).