Uganda’s Ministry of Finance recently revealed that the country buys more goods from Tanzania than any other East African nation.
The Ministry’s Performance of the Economy report for June showed that, in the 12 months leading to May, 83% of all products Uganda sourced from the EAC came from Tanzania. This amounted to a Shs1.6 trillion out of the Shs1.9 trillion sourced from imports within the EAC.
As seen in the Ugandan newspaper, The Monitor, the trade with Tanzania results from a sustained increase in the import of gold and rice.
For some time, Kenya stood as Uganda’s number one import destination from the EAC, up until 2021, when the trade dynamics within the sub-region began to shift.
While the report failed to specify how much gold Tanzania traded with Uganda during the period under review, the Bank of Uganda revealed that the country imported mineral products, 90% of which were gold worth $2.7 billion.
Uganda sometimes imports gold from Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo, after which it is refined and exported.
Gold is Uganda’s most valuable export, earning the country around $2.8 billion (Shs 10.3 trillion). As previously stated, Uganda often buys raw gold and refines it before re-exporting it.
The report by the Ministry of Finance noted that Uganda, in the period, bought around 42.7% of all its unrefined gold from the East African Community. It got 24.3% from Asia, 13.8% from the Middle East and 12.2% from the rest of Africa.
Conversely, the Middle East is Uganda’s largest export market, purchasing around 34% of its total export. The report revealed that in May alone, the Middle East bought $297.6 million worth of products from Uganda, majority of which were gold.
The EAC took up 26.4% of Uganda’s total export during the same period, followed by Asia with 22.8% and the European Union with 12.6%.
