Uganda’s export revenue growth is still being driven by gold, which increased to 650.6 million dollars in June 2023 from 365 million in the same month of 2022.
Additionally, this represents an 11.1% rise in total exports over the $585.81 million reported in May 2023 and accounts for 39% of the month’s total exports.
In May 2023, mineral exports, which were virtually completely made up of gold, totalled 253 million dollars, an increase from 200.7 million; however, in June, mineral exports were zero since gold exports were still being halted by the exporters.
New government tax policies in June 2021 were the cause of the gold exporters’ protest, which was put on hold until August of the previous year.
According to the Bank of Uganda and the Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development, exports have been continuously increasing since that time.
According to data at the Central Bank, gold export revenue had increased to 170 million dollars per month prior to the stoppage.
Gold exports are anticipated to generate at least 2.5 billion dollars a year, a record high and more than a third of total export revenues, if the subsector remains stable.
Aside from gold, increasing earnings from beans, simsim, cotton, and coffee contributed to the increase in export figures.
Coffee, which had previously been the nation’s top export earner, had an increase in export revenue from 73.3 million in June to 90.6 million in May, which is also somewhat more than the 83.8 million for June 2022.
The Uganda Coffee Development Authority attributed this growth primarily to the rising price of Robusta coffee on the world market, “which prompted exporters to offload coffee from their warehouses for sale.”
Maize export revenue increased from 4.5 million dollars in June 2022 to 10.5 million dollars in May and 12.2 million dollars in June of this year.
In contrast to June 2022, other significant exports like oil re-exports, flowers, and tobacco all showed minor rises. However, one important export, fish and fish products, witnessed a fall to 10.7 million dollars.
based on the ministry’s July Performance Report. With about 34% of the total market share, the East African Community continued to be Uganda’s biggest export market.
Kenya accounted for 31.4 percent of Uganda’s exports, South Sudan for 25.7 percent, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for 24.7 percent.
The Middle East and Asia were in second and third place, receiving 32.8 percent and 13.8 percent of all exports, respectively.
However, due to an increase in gold shipments to the region, there was a significant increase in the items headed for the Asian market, nearly tripling from 28.12 million in June 2022 to 213.5 million in June 2023.
Also rising, from 41.7 million in June of last year to 48.7 million in June of 2023, were unofficial cross-border shipments.
The Middle East and the European Union came in second and third, respectively, with Asia coming in first. The European Union’s market share in Uganda’s export market fell from 21.3 percent to 12.7 percent.
