Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta have held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of TICAD 7 conference in Yokohama, Japan during which the two leaders discussed the issue of sugar and sugarcane exports to Kenya.
This is a followup toa joint permanent commission meeting in Mombasa last March, where it was agreed that Kenya’s importation of sugar from Uganda would increase from 30,000 tons to 90,000 tons per annum but the process has delayed.
According to reports, the importation licenses are issued by Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture which delays to issue them.
According to a Uganda Presidential Press Unit (PPU) news release Museveni said there is need to fasten the trade process.
“Ugandans have grown too much sugar cane, they want to export sugarcane to Kenya. We don’t allow export of unprocessed sugarcane but because of the quantity, they were saying that we suspend the ban of export of raw sugarcane and allow Kenyan factories which are willing, to buy it,” he said.
Kenyatta pledged to follow up on the matter.
If the deal is settled, Uganda is set to become a dominant sugar exporter within the East African Community.
Earlier in January, Tanzania cleared importation of Ugandan sugar after a meeting between the countries’ ministers of trade broke a trade deadlock.
CN/abj/APA