Year: 2020

Uganda’s economy grew by 6.5 per cent in the fiscal year 18/19, maintaining the rebound in economic activity over the last two years, according to the latest edition of the Uganda Economic Update released by the World Bank.

The 14th Uganda Economic Update report, “Strengthening Social Protection Investments to Reduce Vulnerability and Promote Inclusive Growth” shows that the country’s economy was boosted by strong consumer spending and sustained levels of public and private investment.

The World Bank advised that in order to control shocks and support more inclusive growth, Uganda’s government should expand social protection programs to areas with the highest levels of vulnerability and risk.

“Recent favourable weather and stronger agricultural growth has contributed to the recovery of household incomes and lowered the estimated poverty levels down to those observed in the 2012-2013 fiscal year. However, environmental shocks and climatic risks can quickly reverse this trend.” said the report.…

Chief executives of firms operating in Africa are concerned about weaker than expected growth in revenues in 2020, largely due to policy uncertainty, over-regulation, exchange rate volatility and instability in the global financial markets.

According to A global survey of chief executives released by consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, over 50 per cent of top company executives in Africa see uncertain global economic growth and policy uncertainty as key threats to their continental operations, followed by social instability, geopolitical uncertainty and exchange rate volatility.

The global annual survey seeks to understand the environment in which companies operate globally. Other issues facing Africa’s CEOs are inadequate basic infrastructure, protectionism, cyber threats and tax uncertainty. (Diazepam)

According to the report, 3 per cent of African CEOs say to expect the global growth to remain the same while 53 per cent say it will decline this year and 20 per cent say global …

The visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to three African countries of Senegal, Angola, and Ethiopia is significant for the Trump administration not only as of the first trip the senior official has made to the continent, but a first for a senior official since the launch of the new strategy for Africa. The last time a senior official to visit sub-Sahara Africa was Pompeo’s predecessor, Rex Tillerson who lost his job while on a trip to Kenya.

Trump’s Africa Strategy was aimed at promoting prosperity, security, and stability in relations, and the business-friendly Prosper Africa which aims to substantially increase two-way trade and investment between the United States and Africa.

The leading issue will mainly be on security and counter-terrorism efforts mainly in the Sahel as well as the horn of Africa. Though Somalia has remained a point of discussion in terms of security, there is a …

Uganda’s Cabinet approves an extra $1.8 million to help fight the locust invasion.

This was after it came to be known that $3 million of the initial $4 million released for the same purpose was used to pay membership arrears to the Desert Locusts Control Organisation for East Africa (DLCO-EA).

DLCO-EA draws membership from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, and Djibouti.

According to the EastAfrican a local news platform, Uganda still owes the organisation an extra $2 million even after paying the arrears, Uganda, together with Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia, are the main defaulters.

According to the EastAfrican, the Country Representative for DLCO-EA, Mr Evarist Magara said that each member partner is supposed to pay $120,000 per year. Adding that Uganda’s debt had grown to $5 million accumulated over nearly 30 years of non-payment. Sudan also owes $6 million to the regional organization.

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African startups raised $2b in funding rounds last year according to the Partech Africa 2020 report.

“The Partech Africa report tracked 250 rounds raised by 234 start-ups compared to 164 rounds by 146 start-ups the year before, representing 52 per cent growth year-on-year growth in deal count,” the report reads in part.

It also noted that the early-stage rounds of seed and Series A investments were extremely dense, signifying investors’ increased confidence in taking early bets in Africa.

Startups look to investors to acquire capital since they are usually alienated by financial institutions.

The process is sequential, divided between pre-seed funding, seed funding, series A, B and growth. according to data, Investors continue to invest majorly in startups at the growth stage, which attracted $912m from 19 rounds compared to seed funding which drew up $151m from 127 rounds.

Also Read: Crowdfunding: Bank Borrowing Alternative For Start Ups

This is …

Uganda is hoping to increase its trade ties with South Sudan following the completion and handover of the first phase of Nimule one-stop border post (OSBP) to the Juba government.

The Nimule one-stop border post (OSBP) is $5 million facility funded by the UK government through TradeMark East Africa (TMEA).

South Sudan customs officials will managed the Nimule one stop border post. While Elegu, the Ugandan side of the border has for a while now been operating as OSBP.

The Minister of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Ms Amelia Anne Kyambadde described the project as “a very important development” for not just South Sudan and Uganda but the entire EAC regional trade.

“With opening of the Nimule OSBP, I expect an exponential rise in trade. We expect to grow our trade with South Sudan by close of the year by even $500million. We would like to see our traders form orderly …

The World Bank told Uganda’s government to stop giving unnecessary tax exemption because they are eroding a huge tax base that would otherwise have huge returns.

A study conducted by George Town University, presented during Economic Growth Forum in Uganda last year indicated tax incentives cost Ugandan taxpayers between about $8.9 billion and about $12.9 billion or 2 per cent of GDP annually.

The World Bank said this, has denied Uganda an opportunity to increase the country’s tax ratio to the GDP, which remains low compared to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa and East Africa.

Speaking in Kampala on Wednesday, the World Bank senior country economist, Mr Richard Walker said Uganda’s fiscal policy is constrained by low revenues and slow execution of capital spending.

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“At 12.6 per cent of GDP, it is far below government’s medium-term revenue target and compared to …

Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) received information from Australia that Ugandans own assets worth $13.1m in the country.

URA revealed it is re-enforcing its alertness towards tax leakages driven by off shore assets held by Ugandans in a brief released last week.

“An initial report obtained from the Australian Tax office indicates that by September 2019, over $13.1m was held in various assets in Australia by person’s resident for tax purposes in Uganda,” the brief reads in part.

To counter risks presented by globalisation, open markets and digitisation Uganda Revenue Authority has enhanced the exchange of information facility through the worldwide exchange of information network.

Also Read: Middle East, Comesa leading markets for Ugandan export

The move seeks to simplify investigations into the concealment of incomes, tax base erosion by multinationals and country of origin fraud. Through the platform, URA has retrieved $25.4m.

In hope of accessing concealed transaction-level data and …

Egypt’s annual urban consumer inflation rose to 7.2 per cent in January from 7.1 per cent in December, the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) said.

From December, it announced that month on month urban headline inflation stood at 0.7 per cent adding that Inflation remains within Egypt’s Central Bank of a target range of 9 per cent, plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The CBE announced that Egypt’s core inflation increased to 2.7% in January from 2.4% in December. Consumer prices decreased to 0.2% in December after decreasing to 0.3% in November.

Also Read: Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan set for Blue Nile dam agreement this January

Since August in December 2019, Egypt’s annual consumer price inflation rate recorded its highest rate rising to 7.1 per cent from 3.6 per cent in November.

According to Trading Economics data, prices rebounded for food & non-alcoholic beverages decreased to 1.8 …

The Middle East and Comesa have become the leading export markets for Ugandan goods, according to the Bank of Uganda(BoU) report for the year ended December 2019.

The two markets and others in East Africa, Europe and America saw a 10.1 increase in Uganda’s exports for the period under review.

During the period, the Comesa, Middle East and (Common Market for East and Southern Africa) each fetched earnings of $1.2 billion.

According to some experts, the increasing exports to the Middle East is mainly due to the growing gold exports, specifically to the United Arab Emirates.

Also Read: Uganda growth could lower and oil investment delays are part of it, IMF says

The report also added that the Middle East also received a good share of Uganda’s fruits, coffee and vegetable exports in the same period under review.

The report further indicates that Uganda’s exports receipts from Comesa mainly came …