By President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has called on Ugandans to protect and consolidate the country’s economic progress as Uganda moves toward attaining high middle-income status.
Delivering a keynote address at the NRM special interest group elections held at Kololo Independence Grounds, the President highlighted Uganda’s remarkable economic transformation since 1986. He noted that the country’s GDP has grown from USD 3.9 billion to USD 66 billion, representing a seventeen-fold increase over nearly four decades.
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Museveni traced this transformation through five distinct phases of economic growth. He recalled the early years of minimum recovery when essential goods such as soap, salt, paraffin, cement, and clothing were scarce, saying the government’s first priority was restoring their production. The next stage was the expansion of production, particularly of key exports like coffee and tea, followed by diversification which brought previously non-monetary products like bananas, cassava, potatoes, milk, beef, and fruits into the cash economy.
He said this was later succeeded by a phase of value addition, where raw materials began to be transformed into higher-value products. Uganda, according to the President, is now in the fifth phase the knowledge economy where innovation and technology are driving progress. “We are no longer just adding value; we are harnessing the products of the brain and the skills of the hand,” he said.
Museveni cited the locally made Kira electric buses, along with homegrown research into computers and vaccines, as symbols of Uganda’s technological advancement.
The President also called on citizens to fully participate in the money economy. He pointed out that in 2013, 68 percent of households were still largely outside the cash economy, but that figure has since reduced to 33 percent through initiatives such as Operation Wealth Creation.
“To protect the gains we have made and take Uganda to high middle-income status, every Ugandan must engage in productive activities, particularly in commercial agriculture, services, and ICT, to earn cash and build wealth,” Museveni said.
His remarks come at a time when the government continues to promote industrialization, agro-processing, and digital innovation as key pillars of economic transformation.
