Inside The Government's Ten-Fold Growth Strategy

The government has embarked on an ambitious strategy of growing the economy tenfold from USD 49.5 billion as of FY 2023/2024 to USD 500 billion in the next 15 years. 

The NDPIV is the fourth out of the six National Development Plans for Uganda Vision 2040. It is also the last plan to deliver the Global Agenda 2030 of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).  

The goal of NDPIV is "to achieve higher household incomes and employment for sustainable socio-economic transformation." It is premised on the theme: Sustainable industrialization for inclusive growth, employment and wealth creation." 

From the performance of the previous plans, some Ugandans are skeptical that the NDPIV catapult the nation toward double-digit economic growth. However, the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MoFPED) Permanent Secretary Ramathan Ggoobi on Wednesday invited Ugandans to join the Ugandan economy to another level. He said the implementation of the strategy has begun.

“I would like to see a Uganda with five hundred billion dollars; we are now at about 53 billion dollars,” said Ramathan Ggoobi who doubles as the Secretary to the Treasury.

He said the government intends to leverage four key areas as it embarks on the plan that will replace the NDPIII. He outlined key areas that he said are likely to mint money for Uganda in the next 15 years.            

The areas earmarked for growth include agro-industrialization and light manufacturing. “The target here is to raise it to twenty billion dollars by 2040. It is one of our anchor sectors that is employing the bulk of Ugandans and quite catalyst in nature,” he revealed.

Ggoobi was the chief guest at the 10th annual Uganda National Journalism Awards ceremony held at Mestil Hotel in Kampala on Wednesday.   

The ambitious strategy amidst concerns that Uganda is not particularly industrially competitive in the global market. The recent African Development Bank Group’s Country report said Uganda’s manufacturing sector ranks 123rd out of 153 countries.    

The country's structural transformation remains with six in ten Ugandans dependent on agriculture employment. 

The main causes of the slow transformation are low labor productivity in agriculture, slow mechanization, limited innovation, and minimal business development and growth.   

However, economists agree that Industrialization can be a key pillar for structural transformation. Vision 2040 is the apex document outlining Uganda’s economic transformation vision. 

The vision aims to transform Uganda from a low-income country to a competitive upper-middle-income country by 2040.

It aims to increase the manufacturing sector’s contribution to GDP by promoting agro-industrialization, mineral beneficiation, and light manufacturing. 

Apart from industrialization, Ggoobi said the government wants to promote tourism differently. “The target is that by 2040, our tourism sector is bringing in 50 billion dollars,” 

There has generally been a feeling that the government has not done enough to promote the tourism sector yet it is among the top relevant higher productivity sectors alongside manufacturing, and construction. Those sectors are known for absorbing unskilled and semi-skilled labor.

In a separate interview, the Deputy Secretary to the Treasury, Patrick Ocailap said the government thinks that the rebounding of the tourism sector is likely to bring opportunities. 

He says the government intends to invest in the improvement of infrastructure, guaranteed security, and other efforts linked to tourism attraction.

“We intend to maximize easy mobility of entry and exit from Uganda by airlines including our own Uganda Airlines”      

The Extractives/capital sector 

The minerals and oil sectors have been identified as cornerstones for Uganda's future growth. Investments in oil and gas sectors are part of the growth equation despite the global debate about the phase-out of fossil fuels. 

The government intends to invest in mineral beneficiation for value addition. Increased oil investments since 2022 bolstered net foreign assets by 11 percent, to USD 3.9 billion in 2023.  

Science, technology, and Innovation 

The country’s 10-fold growth strategy highlights the likely earnings from science, technology, innovation, and generally communication and technology. Ggoobi said science, technology, and innovation have multiplier effects. “It is an anchor program which is going to create economy-wide impact. We would want to see it promoted,” he said.

Ggoobi explained that the government now wants to do things differently to achieve good ambitions. “We want to take full advantage of the new way of doing things. We call it emerging technologies. We want to invest more in new sources of growth”  

Among the actions to achieve the goals is the need to clean up by implementing the existing laws and regulations.

 “In Uganda, we are behaving as if chaos is the new normal. The we live, the way we drive on the road, the way we sell goods in the market, it is all chaos. We would want to clean up by enforcing rules of the game” As part of those efforts, the Ministry of Finance suggests the rollout of Indicative Planning Figures (IPFs) so that limited funds are efficiently utilized.