Yesterday, State Minister of Finance for Investment and Privatization Evelyn Anite presided over a groundbreaking ceremony that will pave way for the development of the Namanve Industrial and Business Park along Jinja road in Wakiso district.
The project will be fully funded by a Shs700 billion loan from the United Kingdom (UK) government and as Minister of UK for Africa Andrew Stephenson remarked, the project will be completed in 42 months.
“Just like a midwife, we hope to have a good pregnancy, swift delivery, and the baby that will be born will be healthy and prosperous to grow Uganda as a whole in a period of 42 months,” Stephenson said.
Evelyn Anite said that once completed, the park will have 500 new factories that will have a range of products manufactured in Uganda will enable the country reduce on the number of imports from China, and providing a projected 200,000 jobs to Ugandans in the process.
“We shall now stop being a supermarket for Chinese imported products because they will be manufactured here but the 200,000 jobs will also have a big multiplier effect,” Anite said.
Namanve is the biggest Industrial park in Uganda sitting on over 2200 acres, but Uganda has 21 other Industrial parks spread in different regions of the country.
This development comes at a time when government is intensifying activities that will see the manufacturing sector grow and drive the economy to Middle-income status by 2040.
Among other attendees on this ceremony was Minister for Works Gen Katumba Wamala who said that the process of developing the Bukasa port and the Kampala – Jinja Expressway is also underway.