The Minister for East African Community (EAC) Affairs, Ms Rebecca Kadaga has said EAC regional cooperation ministers will meet next month to agree on sanctions to be preferred against member states blocking intra-regional trade.
While installing the new president of Uganda Association of Public Administrators and Managers in Kampala last week, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, also the First Deputy Prime Minister, said in a meeting in July they had discovered that Ugandan goods were trading more outside EAC, prompting an agreement to take special measures on non-tariff barriers that prevent the country’s goods from trading in EAC.
“We discovered that Ugandan goods are trading more outside EAC. In July we agreed to take special measures to identify non-tariff barriers preventing Ugandan goods from trading and make sanctions against responsible countries,” she said, noting that Ugandan goods are trading more in Asia, Europe and Comesa yet a lot of goods are coming from within the region to Uganda.
Ms Kadaga also said that Uganda has made major inroads in new trading destinations such as Malawi, where she flagged off medical supplies from Nile Abacus on October 1, and Zambia, where Uganda is now exporting processed milk.
On average, according to data from the Central Bank, Uganda earns about $102.9million from its exports to East Africa, which is a smaller fraction of the $507.4m total export receipts.