Nordic oil companies looking for investment partners in Uganda

Kampala- Government has created a forum where businessmen from Norway, Sweden and Uganda will start reporting the bottlenecks they face as they try to establish their businesses here.

While opening the Nordic day business celebrations in Kampala last week, Trade minister Amelia Kyambadde said the quarterly forum will be similar to the one her ministry created for the American Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The forum, she said, helped government to uncover challenges investors encounter as they try to establish businesses and have hampered the implementation of the public-private partnership policy.

“We need the partnerships and I suggest that we start the quarterly consultative meetings like we have done with the American Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It helped me to uncover many things I had never known,” she told the delegates.
She said her ministry has also created a service directory which will guide the investors with information on any kind of assistance they want from government.

In his address, Mr Thorbjourn Gaustad Saether, the Norwegian Ambassador to Uganda, told the investors the discovery of oil and gas in East Africa, has attracted many Nordic companies to the region and majority want to establish joint ventures in the sector.

“There is a lot of interest in hydro power projects, logistics in the oil industry when petroleum extraction starts- an indicator that Nordic countries would like to see the EAC region attain her full potential and promote the region as a good business destination,” he said.

According to Mr Jonas Armtoft, the senior investment manager Swedfund International, the Swedish government is providing grants ranging from $3 million (about Shs8.2 billion) to $15 million (about Shs41 billion) for farmers with profitable and sustainable business plans.

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