JAPAN and the WORLD Magazine OCTOBER ISSUE 2016 #Issue 17 | Page 25

TICAD VI
UGANDA
Murchison Falls, Nile River, Uganda. River Nile, the longest River in the world, has its source in Uganda.
Japan has good technology and, in fact,
Uganda is going to buy earth-moving
equipment from Japan. They gave us a credit,
so we are buying and paying a down payment
on the equipment.
How does Uganda work to get more
products into the Japanese Market?
At the just concluded TICAD VI Conference
in Nairobi, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe,
I held a bilateral Summit meeting, in which
we discussed issues related to infrastructure,
trade and investment, and tourism, as well as
Human Resource Development.
However, the Japanese market is big and
well organized, but still not particularly
open to some African agricultural products.
Agriculture is the backbone of many African
countries, employing 60% to 70% of the
population and contributing to about 32%
of the GDP. Market accessibility and the
removal of trade barriers would certainly
increase exportation of Ugandan products
to Japan. Japan is amongst the top five
importers of Uganda and this is an indication
of good relations. However, Trade remains
unbalanced in favor of Japan.
The Japanese market is
big and well organized,
but still not particularly
open to some African
agricultural products. Cooperation between the private sectors of
both Uganda and Japan can help ease the
trade imbalance. A case that can be cited is
the joint venture between Uganda Garment
Industries Limited and Yamato Japan that was
established in 1965 and was very successful.
Smiley Earth, a towel producing company,
for example, has a reliable and stable team of
excellent organic cotton producing partners
in Uganda. This indicates that, our country
is stable and its partners are assured of a
conducive business environment.
We both agreed for the technical officials
to have working level discussions on the
implementation of these issues. We are
preparing for these meetings already. Compliance to commodity standards remains
a challenge for potential Ugandan exporters.
There needs to be an upgrading of production
technology and a field in which Japan has
expertise. We hope to enlist the technical
support of Japan External Trade Organization
JAPAN AND THE WORLD MAGAZINE
(JETRO) in this aspect. Contract farming
and identification of supermarket chains
would assist in ironing out the trade barriers
by ascertaining conformity to standards and
improving product quality. Sasakawa Global
2000, Jali – Uganda (Far East), Smiley Earth,
Crystal Coffee and a few others have been
instrumental in this, but more companies
need to come on board.
The Ambassador of Uganda to Japan, H.E. Ms.
Betty Grace Akech-Okullo, in conjunction
with Ideologie International launched a
project titled “EAST X EAST” that aims to
facilitate Japanese SMEs access to Uganda.
The Embassy is wide open to receiving more
Japanese companies and traders.
What type of products would be a
good fit for it?
Agricultural exports still form a big
percentage of total exports from Uganda
to external markets. Top exports from
Uganda are coffee, cotton, tobacco, fish,
sesame, sheer-nuts, tea, and fruits, as well as
horticultural and dairy products, which can
be exported to Japan.
Uganda also has minerals and other related
precious metals that can be exported to
Japan.
OCTOBER 2016 // 25