President Yoweri Museveni has pledged to woo investors to establish industrial parks in the central districts of Masaka. Kyotera and Kalungu.
The industrial parks will be modeled on public-private arrangements like Sino-Uganda Industrial Park in Mbale and Liaoshen Industrial Park in Kapeeka.
The Sino-Uganda Industrial Park now has 75 factories and employs 13,000 young people directly, while Kapeeka Industrial Park has 34 factories and employs 6,000 Ugandans directly.
The Mbale Industrial Park was commissioned in 2018 with a total investment of $600 million (UGX2.4 trillion).
The Masaka Industrial Park is planned for Bukakata, the Kyotera one in Lukoma, and the Kalungu one in Lukaya.
The President, while on his campaign trail, said he is going to woo investors to establish the industrial parks.
Through a public-private partnership framework, the Ugandan government has been attracting and supporting investors to develop industrial parks.
Investors in industrial parks are offered general incentives like a 10-year tax holiday and supported with infrastructure like access roads, electricity, water, and other enabling facilities.
This has seen factories increase to 10,437, with 690 of them located in industrial parks. Cottage industries now stand at 50,000, up from 37,559 in the financial year 2019/20.
The Uganda Investment Authority operates eight public industrial parks, with dozens of others planned across Uganda. In addition, it supports private industrial parks like Mbale, Kapeeka, MMP Buikwe, and Mbalala.
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