By The Homeland Media Business Desk
President Yoweri Museveni has on Wednesday commissioned six companies in Kampala Industrial and Business Park, Namanve.
The companies and Hotels include; Mada Holdings Limited, Crown Packaging Industries, Picfare Industries Limited and Tian Tang Group with subsidiaries Tiang Tang Mixing Plant, Yaya Children’s Products Manufacturing Company Limited and Mi-Tech Uganda Limited.
Mada operates a 125-room modern hotel, Kampala Nile Resort, valued at Shs37 billion, directly employing 200 Ugandans, UIA said in a statement.
Crown Packaging, with an investment value of Shs30bn, manufactures packaging materials, crowns and metal tins. Its production capacity of 16 billion of printing, lining and punching.
The company directly employs 75 Ugandans. Valued at Shs19bn and employing 159 Ugandans, Picfare manufactures paper products and offers printing services.
The Tian Tang Group warehousing complex, trading as Acme Forward Technology Limited, sits on 18.5 acres in which three industries are operating, including Tianhang Mixing Plant, valued at Shs11bn with production capacity of 300,000 cubic meters per year and employing 60 Ugandans.
Yaya is valued at Shs5bn and produces 40 million pieces per year, and employs 50 Ugandans. Mi-Tech, valued at Shs3.7bn, produces 150,000 TV sets and 60,000 stereo sets per year and employs 80 Ugandans.
At the commissioning, the president noted that the government will no longer buy land for industrial parks. It will be provided by local governments, he said.
He also promised reliable electricity supply directly from generation sources instead of through distribution companies, adding that the cost of power for industrial use should be significantly lower.
Morrison Rwakakamba, who represented the UIA board chairman, revealed that if an Investor fails to develop the land within the given timeframe, that is 12 months, the land will be withdrawn and allocated to other serious investors.
The 2,200-acre Namanve Industrial Park has been allocated to 303 investors for development in sectors such as agro-processing, manufacturing, mineral processing, logistics and freight, hospitality, amongst others. In Namanve, 71 industries are currently operational, directly employing 30,000 Ugandans.
A total of 146 projects have commenced construction and these are employing an additional 17,500 Ugandans on short-term, contract or technical terms.
Another 68 projects are still in pre-start stage, carrying out surveying, processing deed plans and titles, environmental impact assessments, architectural designs, geo-technical and hydrological studies.
These projects create white-collar employment for professionals such as architects, physical planners, environmental consultants, civil engineers, quantity surveyors, amongst others.
The balance of 18 projects fall under the newly-allocated-land category. Majority of investors allocated land in the public industrial parks, that is over 60 percent, are domestic (Ugandans).
UIA currently operates eight public industrial and business parks, namely Namanve, Bweyogerere, Luzira, Kasese, Mbarara, Jinja, Mbale, and Soroti. Collectively, 114 industries are already operational in the parks. Plans are underway to operationalize 18 other parks across Uganda in the next few years.
As of December 2020, UIA had licensed 7,763 investment projects in various sectors, including manufacturing. The bulk of the 4,200-plus manufacturing industries (factories) in Uganda have been licensed by UIA. Products from the industries are in both local and export markets.
They include items like transformers, steel products, vehicles, electronics, plastic products, paper products, sugar and other processed foods, building materials, soaps and detergents, textiles and apparels, footwear, leather products, beverages, minerals, amongst others.
In East Africa, Uganda ranks second after Kenya in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in East Africa.
According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 2020 World Investment Report, FDI flows to Uganda reached a record high of 1.3 billion dollars in 2019, a 20-percent increase from one billion dollars in 2018.
