President Museveni Courts Chinese

President Museveni of Uganda has this week been in Hunan Province, China, where he has met with Vice Premier Mr Hu Chunhua. During his two-day working visit he opened the China-Africa Economic and Trade expo, delivering a keynote address on Chinese-African economic and trade partnerships.

Speaking during his visit President Museveni discussed the importance of partnerships for global trade, especially around infrastructure.

"We need to cooperate in those areas so that trade is visible. The Province of Hunan is talking about industrial parks, I encourage that discussion so that the private sector in China can invest in Uganda using our framework of cooperation to produce goods and services to sell in Uganda, Africa and China,” President Museveni stated.

"By doing so, you will be contributing to each other's prosperity by creating jobs, expanding our tax base for revenue and using our raw materials," he added.

Areas for China-Uganda cooperation President Museveni has raised with Chinese President Xi Jinping include the standard gauge railway, oil and tourism roads, industrial parks, irrigation for agricultural production, sports stadiums, markets access, defence cooperation and party cooperation.

Premier Hu noted that trade between China and Africa has increased to more than $30 billion during the last twenty years and that China has invested close to $3.4 billion in Uganda to date.