Uganda Development Corporation is a corporate entity whose strategic and sustainable investments promote national industrial and economic development in Uganda.
Re-established in 2016, the Uganda Development Corporation (UDC) is a wholly-owned Government investment institution. UDC is the investment arm of government that is mandated to promote and facilitate industrial and economic development in Uganda. UDC is guided by a 10 year strategic plan (2019/20-2029/30) with three (3) priority sectors; Agro-manufacturing, Mineral beneficiation/value addition, Services and infrastructure development. Its mission is to establish sustainable investments in areas strategic to Uganda’s social and economic transformation, and prosperity of Uganda.
BUBU is among the best policies to happen to Uganda’s economy especially for the private sector, and in support of this, UDC partners with the private sector through investing in projects that the private sector does not find readily attractive due to high initial capital requirements, resource constraints or initial low returns. Our intervention is not to compete with the private sector; but to support it. UDC provides expertise in management, governance and technology enhancement to the point where the private sector buys us out and the funds are invested in another venture. Partnerships between the public and private sector lay a firm foundation of the produce.
Uganda over the years has shifted from industrial recovery to growth, and this is a collective effort of both the public and private sector because strategies like BUBU support domestic competitiveness within manufacturers. This competitiveness leads to good quality products and services, it improves branding and standards of these products and services. As a result, agencies like UNBS, among others should become more effective to fulfill this by striving for standardization of products made in Uganda. There should be emphasis of Ugandanization of products and not importing. In fact, the ban on the export of raw materials is boosting the manufacturing process. We must work together to promote local industries to achieve the Uganda we want and Africa at large.
There should be a discussion to implement standards with the manufacturers to avoid being told that we have poor standards and work towards having well accredited standards internationally. This is ideal because we can also export our products globally and are accepted on international markets. As UDC, all we need is capitalization so that we support our local manufacturers with necessary resources to produce high quality products worth the market both locally and internationally. Through the intervention of UDC, manufacturers are supported in terms of adequate financing.
Some of the interventions/projects we develop are almost from the start and others, are met half way. Eighty percent (80%) of UDC’s efforts are in agro-processing where the absorption of our young youthful labour force is able to take center stage, we add value on fruits, sugar, tea, cassava, cotton and coffee. For example with Soroti Fruit factory, this project produces Teso Juice (Teju) which is now a household brand found in all supermarkets and retail shops in Uganda. Ugandans are now consuming good quality drinks at a low price other than the expensive imported ones. This goes to all other projects UDC invests in, the raw materials are from within which increases markets so that farmers are not stranded because those in the manufacturing sector do not have market.
UDC’s progress.
We are currently supporting tea production in the Southern and mid-west part of the country where our aim is to make sure we get tea processing into the export market because 98% of the production is for the export market. Our portfolio registers four (4) tea industries and two more are in progress in the tea subsector.
A processing facility of fruit in the Eastern part of the country has been opened up and we plan to build further food processing facilities for mangoes, watermelons, pineapples and oranges, as well as cocoa, coffee and cassava.
With Uganda’s importation bill US$ 20 million of starch, UDC aims at adding value to the cassava grown in the country to produce quality starch that is needed as a source of raw material in our industries.
UDC also provides sustainable and strategic investments in infrastructure, financing, minerals beneficiation and services. With plans to establish a cement processing plant in Moroto and glass processing in Masaka.
In providing a strategic bridge for private sector development, UDC is unlocking Uganda’s thriving industrial and manufacturing sectors, and steering Uganda’s trajectory forward to its destiny as a middle income economy.
