Pocket millions of Shillings from exercise books

A trader receives money from a customer buying books in Kampala. Investing in producing exercise books is a big investment venture one can exploit because of the readily available market. Photo by Eric Dominic Bukenya

More than 9.4 million children are enrolled in primary and secondary schools in Uganda. All these need exercise books among other stationary materials to study well.
Exercise books are stationary items required for schools, offices and other purposes. Their market and demand is high since they are used by most pupils and students.
That is why it makes sense to invest in producing exercise books.
According to Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), starting up this manufacturing business is lucrative.
Exercise books are sold in stationary shops, markets, wholesale shops, retail shops and on streets.

Capital investment
The scale of investment is relatively big as it involves buying different machines and equipment.
Depending on the production capacity on the quantity of raw materials used in production process, this business idea is based on 300 working days, with a single shift of eight hours per day.
The smallest viable unit can produce 2,000 exercise books of 96 pages per day, translating into 624,000 exercise books per annum at $0.25 (Shs900) each.
The revenue potential is estimated at $156,000 (Shs561.6 billion) per month, translating into $1,872,000 (Shs6.7 billion) per annum.
To produce this kind of capacity, total investment required is $71,390 (Shs257 million) for the first year of project operation.

Technology involved
Manufacturing exercise books involves using a double-side disc ruling machine of size 915 mm, hand feed with a motor and starter, paper and a hand board cutting machine, stitching machine, an offset printing machine complete with accessories.
The production process involves ruling of lines on the paper in red and blue ink, folding of paper, cutting of paper, cutting of outer cover, printing of outer cover, folding of the
external cover, stitching the cover and pages, inspection and packing.

Market
There is a ready market throughout the country as more and more children go to school. The UPE and USE programmes have boosted the numbers.
Source of Supply of machinery, equipments and raw materials is procured locally although it could also be imported from countries like Japan, South Africa and Chain.

Advice
Because the market already has established players like Picfare and Oscar Industries, Uganda Manufacturers Association chief executive officer, Mr Tito Byenkya advises that you need to be innovative to start this business.
“The market is big and already has players. But one has to make their products different and this means innovation and focusing on branding,” Mr Byenkya shares.
He adds that quality should not be comprised in this business. You should avoid taking customers for granted in this business.
He adds: “Building relationships on a one-on-one basis will help you negotiate in this business.”
Lastly, Byenkya cautions that you ought to be mindful of the peak and low seasons in this business to survive.

Incentives
According to UIA, there are low tax rates and sometimes no taxes at all on most of the industrial equipment and raw materials.