Uganda is increasingly earning big from exports
The Ministry of Finance has revealed that in the first month of 2025, Uganda exported goods worth USD859.22million (Shs3.149Trn) which is a 16% increase of the goods exported in December 2024.
The country also imported goods worth USD 1,100.46 million (Shs4.033Bn) in the same month.
The details are contained in the Performance of the Economy Monthly Report February 2025 that was released on Wednesday by the Ministry of Finance.
“On a monthly basis, export earnings in January 2025 amounted to USD859.22million (Shs3.149Trn), a 16.6 percent increase from USD736.81million (Shs2.7Trn) in December2024. This growth was primarily driven by higher earnings from mineral products, coffee, electricity, tobacco, cotton, tea, flowers and maize among others. Similarly, exports excluding coffee and mineral products increased by18.1 percent from USD320.79million (Shs1.175Bn) to USD378.87million (Shs1.388Trn), signalling a rise in majority of our exports in January 2025,” read in part the report.
According to the Ministry, the Middle East emerged as the biggest destination of Uganda’s exports, accounting for 32.9 percent of the total exports in January 2025 and within the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates accounted for 97.7 percent of Uganda’s exports to the region.
Other notable destinations for Uganda’s exports were the East African Community that took in 27.4 percent goods from Uganda, the European Union (16.9 percent), Asia (14.8 percent) and the Rest of Africa (4.0 percent).
The report further indicated that within the European Union, Italy, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands accounted for close to 90 percent of exports to the region. Within the EAC, Democratic Republic of Congo emerged as the largest importer of Uganda’s merchandise, taking up 33.4 percent (USD 78.61 million) of total exports. This was followed by South Sudan at 27.1 percent (USD 63.80 million) and Kenya at 21.6 percent (USD 50.87 million).
Similarly, on a month-to-month basis, imports increased by 4.3 percent from USD1,055.71 million (Shs3.869Trn) in December 2024 to USD 1,100.46 million (Shs4.033Bn) in January 2025.
Government attributed this growth to higher volumes of project-related Government Imports as well as formal private sector oil-related imports. These include vegetable products, animal, beverages, fats & oils, petroleum products, chemical & related products, plastics, rubber & related products, electricity, among others.
Asia maintained its position as the largest source of Uganda’s imports in January 2025, accounting for 40.6 percent of total imports. Within Asia, the major sources were China, India, Malaysia and Japan, accounting for 44.6 percent, 29.7 percent, 7.1 percent and 6.3 percent respectively. Other notable sources of Uganda’s imports included the EAC, Rest of Africa and the Middle East accounting for 21.1 percent, 19.6 percent and 9.6 percent consecutively. Within the EAC, Tanzania and Kenya were the primary source of Uganda’s imports, accounting for 61.7 percent and 34.6 percent of the imports from the region, respectively.
Comparison with January 2024 shows that, despite Asia being the largest source of Uganda’s imports, the import bill from Rest of Africa and the EAC increased as a share of our total imports from 11.8 percent to 19.6 percent and 18.0 percent to 21.1 percent respectively, pointing to increased imports from African countries. Consequently, the share of imports to Uganda from Asia, the Middle East and the European Union decreased from 48.4 percent to 40.6 percent, 10.3 percent to 9.6 percent and 7.1 percent to 6.7 percent successively.
