The government of Uganda and South Africa recently organised a business Summit that aimed at boosting trade and investment relations between South Africa and Uganda as well as promoting tourism sector between both countries.
The summit was held at Gallagher Convention centre in Midland and gave an opportunity for the traders at individual level, investors who own big companies and members of the private sector from the two countries to attend.
The two days’ work summit was organised by the Private Sector Foundation (PSFU) from Uganda and it was attended by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and his long-time friend H.E Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa.
The summit gave an opportunity to traders and investors to show case their products and got a chance of interacting with the two presidents of both countries during the exbition.
Among the investors were the Macadamia group who hail from Mityana district and these do a gro forestry with a life line of about ninety years.
These deal in Crop Farming, Train farmers on Crop farming and extension, source markets for the agricultural produce of local farmers as well as encouraging Ugandans to engage in Farming because Farming is the back bone of Uganda.
According to Morvi Asim, the Managing Director of Amafh Farms under Macadamia group they want to create forty thousand (40,000) Ugandan farmers, source one hundred fifty thousand jobs for Ugandans, help in Climate change and environmental conservation and want to see that Uganda attain the middle income status.
So attending the summit was an added advantage for them to brighten the gap and extend service to a wider market because during the summit, their stall was one of the most visited during the exbition.
“It was a good idea for the two counties to organise the summit because we managed to get linkages to a wider market of our products and we hope to see our brand extending to different countries,” Mr Morvi Asim said in an interview with this news publication.
Accordingly, Mr Morv says, they have helped more than 2500 farmers from different regions of the country and now hoping to see the number grows bigger.
More than a hundred government and private agencies attended the summit including the Uganda Revenue Authority the taxing body in Uganda, Uganda Airlines, Uganda Investment Authority among others.
The president of Uganda got an opportunity to engage some of the investors and assured them that government will do whatever it can to see that they invest their money in Uganda and some to get financial support from the government.
Museveni promised to give a taxi free holiday of ten years to the investors as a way of encouraging them to invest in Uganda as they will be helping in fighting unemployment in the country.
Among other key issues discussed were the issuance of Visas to the traders where two countries agreed to remove all visa restrictions for the investors and traders to do business with ease.
Mr Odrek Rwabogo the presidential advisor on export and investments appreciated mostly Macadamia group and other stake holders who took part during the summit and promised to do such engagements in other countries to give a business opportunity to investors and other Ugandans who are doing business.