Uganda sees economic growth of 5.3 percent this fiscal year

KAMPALA: Uganda’s economic growth is set to accelerate to 5.3 per cent in fiscal 2014/15, driven by infrastructure investment aimed at maximising the benefits from an expected oil boom, outgoing finance minister Maria Kiwanuka has said.

She was speaking to Reuters before she was moved in a cabinet reshuffle on Sunday to become the presidential advisor on finance. Her forecast was the government’s first growth estimate for the fiscal year ending in June, after Uganda rebased its gross domestic product in November.

In 2013/14, the economy grew 4.5 per cent and Kiwanuka said she expected growth to reach 6 per cent annually in the coming years.

“We have an ambitious public infrastructure investment programme covering power and roads. Manufacturing and construction have also picked up again after the effects of the global economic crisis,” Kiwanuka said.

Uganda is due to begin oil production in 2018 and Kiwanuka said she expected oil prices would recover and so would not affect long-term investment in the sector. “It has happened before, the prices will go back. I don’t see this short-term price movement impacting the long-term investments,” she said.

Her views differed from those of central bank Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile, who said low crude prices were likely to slow down investment in Uganda’s petroleum sector.

—Reuters