Uganda economy grew by 3.3% amid Covid-19 crisis –Museveni 

Uganda’s economy registered a 3.3 percent growth rate for the financial year 2020/21 up from 3 per cent registered in 2019/20 even as Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc in Uganda and other parts of the globe.
Delivering the State of the Nation address at Kololo Independence Grounds on Friday, President Museveni said the economy-registered growth despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. 
“Twenny twenny (2020) came with locusts, floods, the rising levels of the Lakes, landslides, floating islands, etc. 

Soon after, corona came in, starting with March 2020. I am happy to repeat to you what everybody knows; Uganda did not only manage to cope with these challenges, but also the economy managed a modest expansion of 3 per cent for the financial year 2019- 2020 and will manage an expansion of 3.3 per cent for the financial year 2020-2021. If it had not been for Corona, the economy was projected to grow by 6.3 per cent and 6.2 percent in the financial years 2019-2020 and 2020- 2021, respectively. We defeated the locusts and coped with all the other problems,”   Mr Museveni said as he addressed MPs of the 11th Parliament.
He said the size of the economy has expanded 31 times since 1986, adding that Uganda is on the road to middle income status without revealing which year this will be realised.    
Mr Museveni pledged that by 2026, the economy is estimated to be $69billion or $193billion by the PPP method.  
According to Mr Museveni, there are four steps needed to be undertaken to boost further economic growth and they include: Commercial agriculture to realize increase agricultural products, industry (industrialization), the services sector and the Information Communications Technology (ICT) to do the job. 

He said there are four main markets for Ugandan products and they include: the internal (domestic) within the country, the East African Community market, the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) and the global market. However, he said there are other markets like European Union, the AGOA among others. 
On the bottlenecks to doing business in Uganda, Mr Museveni said the problems Uganda is facing is continued high cost of power (electricity), high cost of money (interest rate) by what he described as the exploitative commercial banks and high cost of transport while transporting goods by road. 

“On the cost of money, we are continuing to fund the UDB ─ so that it can give loans for manufacturing, agriculture, some services (tourism, medical, etc.) and ICT (BPOs) at not more than 12 percent and the more they lend, the lower the interest rate will become,” he said. 
For the high cost of energy Mr Museveni said: “One solution that I have already ordered for Industrial Parks is to supply power directly from some of the Government dams to them. I will not be deflected from that.”
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