The Permanent Secretary/ Secretary to the Treasury, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Mr. Ramathan Ggoobi on February 20th, 2025, led a delegation to pay a courtesy call on the Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Mr. Zhang Xiangchen at the WTO Headquarters.
Mr. Ggoobi, who was on a 2-day working visit to Geneva, was accompanied to the meeting by Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, Amb. Arthur Kafeero, Commissioner Economic Development, Policy and Research, Mr. Joseph Enyimu and Mr. Moses Kabanda, Commissioner Public administration in the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.
Mr. Ggoobi expressed gratitude to the World Trade Organization (WTO) for its continuous support and highlighted the important role of trade and development for Uganda and other LDCs and developing countries, acknowledging that Uganda received Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF), funding support for country projects totaling over USD 6.9 million. “I wish to thank you for the WTO’s continued project support towards Uganda, including through the Aid for Trade Initiative and the Enhanced Integrated Framework,” he said. “Uganda received USD 6.9m comprising support to building the institutional capacity for trade; diagnostics; and strengthening the capacity of district commercial offices and productive capacity development in the tourism sector,” he reported.
Recalling the last WTO Ministerial Conference in February 2024, he welcomed the Abu Dhabi Ministerial Declaration’s reiteration of the centrality of the development dimension in the work of the WTO, recognising that the full integration of developing Members, including least-developed countries (LDCs), in the multilateral trading system is important for their economic development.
“As a land linked LDC, we see great potential in Intra-African trade offering greater scope to support economic diversification and export stabilization, considering that the EAC has a market of 300 million people, COMESA 640 million and the AFCFTA about 1.4 billion,” said Ggoobi.
Mr. Ggoobi and the DDG held a vibrant discussion on the green transition as well as the importance of Digital Trade for Uganda, acknowledging the digital infrastructure gap, including limited internet access and high costs, especially in rural areas. Ggoobi took the opportunity to inform that Uganda had formally expressed its interest in joining the “Digital Trade for Africa” Project, a joint WTO/World Bank effort that seeks to help African countries share fully in the benefits that digital trade brings and improve their development prospects.
Mr. Ggoobi briefed the DDG on Uganda’s 10-fold growth strategy anchored on the pillars of Agro-processing, Tourism, Mineral Resource development and Science and technology transfer and creative economies.
Deputy Director-General Zhang applauded Uganda on her path to achieving her development goals through digital transformation and for the ambitious target of the 10-fold growth strategy by 2040 the current DGP. He emphasized the importance of e-commerce and digital transformation as key elements to achieving such exponential ambition.
Zhang said that in view of the demographics of Uganda with a high percentage of youth, there is great potential in encouraging and developing a creative economy, citing examples from his own country of origin, China that to date relies heavily on creativity and digitalization, not only in basic Information Technologies, but embedding AI into critical sectors like Agriculture.
Mr. Zhang cited Uganda’s improved regulatory framework and e-commerce protection. “The WTO will, going forward increase its engagement with African economies and learn good practices from each other.
