KAMPALA – Trademark East Africa (TMEA) aid-for-trade, with presence in several African countries, has welcomed firms in the UK to invest in Uganda.
TMEA has a regional presence in South Sudan, Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
This was during a meeting held at the Kampala Serena Hotel where various entrepreneurs and had an interactive session.
The major agenda was about reducing on the bottlenecks that are hampering trade within the East African region.
Mr. Moses Sabiiti, the Country Director and Programmes Manager in South Sudan revealed that East Africa is faced with high costs of doing business in comparison to other countries elsewhere.
“We have the highest cost of doing business compared to other countries and this has yielded low dividends to the public. This arises from transport due to the poor infrastructure among others.”He noted.
Mr. Sabiiti also stressed that TMEA intends to promote trade advancements on a regional and International level.
Mr. Richard Kamajugo, TMEA’s Chief Operating Officer, revealed that the national electric single window has spread to a regional level and other transformations such as Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) , trade systems, mutual recognition among others are some of the achievements that have talked bottlenecks in trade.
“We have for the last 25 years been working on sustainable ways to deal with poverty and this is through doing business effectively. Due to this, some of the challenges in areas such as tourism, agriculture among others have been identified.” Said Mr. Adrian Green, Head of Growth and Economic Management at the Department of International Development (DFID).
TMEA is of the aid-for-trade organisation it is funded by DFID, Netherlands, Canada, USA, and European Union among others to reduce on Non-Trade-Barriers, increase exports and job creation.
It brought together other players such as Uganda Revenue Authority, Uganda National Bureau of Standards, Ministry of Trade and Corporations, plus aviation industry players, logistics and others.
