LAHORE: The deputy prime minister of Uganda says her country is ready to export high-quality tea to Pakistan, which can earn considerable foreign exch­ange by branding and exp­orting it to various countries.

“Uganda is a country producing quality tea, coffee and cocoa beans and exists in the list of major African countries producing tea and coffee,” Ugan­d­a’s Deputy Prime Minister Rukia Isanga Nakadama told Dawn on Thursday.

The top Ugandan official, who visited the office of the honorary Ugandan consul in Pakistan, said, “We have a huge potential of producing various commodities, especially tea and coffee. We also have fruit, such as pineapples, mangoes and oranges. And we have all this to offer to Pakistan and other countries.”

She also wanted Pakis­tan to invest in healthcare, pharmaceutical, research, science and technology, enabling Pakistan to grow in these sectors.

Deputy PM also wants Pakistan to invest in healthcare, pharmaceutical, research, science and technology sectors

During the 2020-21 fiscal year, Pakistan impor­ted tea worth $494.39 million from Kenya, one of Uganda’s neighbouring countries, according to the UN Comtrade data.

Similarly, the Observatory of Economic Complexity, an online data visualisation and distribution platform, puts Pakistan’s tea imports at $601m in the 2019-20 fiscal year, describing it as the largest importer of the commodity in the world.

The same year, tea was the eleventh most imported product in Pakistan, coming primarily from Kenya ($429m), Vietnam ($78.2m), Rwanda ($35.5m), Tanza­nia ($12.3m) and Burundi ($11.3m).

When asked about the competitiveness of Ugan­d­a’s tea prices since Pak­i­s­tan has already been imp­orting it at reasonable rat­es from Kenya and other cou­ntries, Ms Nakadama said the tea produced by her cou­­ntry was of high quality and value-added with spices.

“Generally, all of our tea production goes directly to Kenya, where it is exported to Pakistan and other countries after branding. Pakistani businessmen can also come to Uganda, install necessary machinery, procure tea from us and export it,” she said.

“You can even import it from us directly and brand it in your own country and export to various countries,” she said. “When you talk about quality, the price doesn’t matter.”

To a question, she said the Ugandan president had already announced a certain period of tax holidays for all those looking to inv­est in Uganda in various fields.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2022