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“WORK WITH US TO ADD VALUE TO OUR PRODUCTS” - PRESIDENT MUSEVENI RALLIES SERBIA BUSINESSPEOPLE President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has appealed to the people of the Republic of Serbia to support Uganda to achieve its economic agenda of adding value to its raw materials. According to the President, if Uganda adds value to its products, it will be able to generate a lot of revenue and in turn, the East African country will attain the much-desired socio-economic transformation. President Museveni, who is on a two-day official visit in Serbia, made the call today while addressing a business summit at the Presidential Palace in Belgrade. President Museveni said that since Uganda produces a lot of raw materials, what they want now from their friends of Serbia, Europe and other parts of the world, is a working relationship premised on adding value to those raw materials such as coffee, tea and cocoa among others. “Our big interest is adding value to these agricultural products because when you don't add value, we lose a lot of money. If you take a kilogram of coffee and sell it unprocessed you get 2.5 USD, if you process, roast, grind and package it, you end up getting 40 USD. So, you can see by selling unprocessed coffee we are losing a lot of money,” H.E Museveni told the summit. He also wondered how a non-coffee producing country like Germany is able to earn more money than all the coffee producing African countries, combined together. He said this was a very unfair business model that needed to be changed. “I was telling His Excellency that the global coffee business is 460 billion USD. However, all the coffee producing countries in the world like Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, Uganda, Indonesia among others, out of the 460 billion USD, we share only 25 billion USD and Africa shares only 2.4 billion USD out of that. A non-coffee producing country like Germany earns billion USD from coffee,” President Museveni asserted. “I know you Serbians are Orthodox Christians, this is not Christian behavior in the world and I want to go to Germany and talk to the Catholics and say please you have departed from the teachings of Christ because he said love your neighbors as you love yourself. You are now loving yourselves more than loving us,“ he added. The President further attributed the rampant problems in Africa like wars, poverty and insecurity to the inability of Africans to get real value for their products. “What is true of coffee is true of cotton, is true of minerals. My people wanted to export our iron ore for 47 USD instead of 700 USD a tonne to India. Now that means we would be losing money but also jobs because President Museveni assured the businesspeople of Serbia of a ready market for their products once they set up industries/factories in Uganda. “Once we add value, then the next thing is transport and market of the finished products. You have heard that Uganda has a population of 46 million but the Ugandan women are very active, this population will be 100 million in the next 30 years. But that is not all, we belong to the East African Community of seven countries with a population of 300 million people and we are part of the African Continental Free Trade Area with 1.5 billion people who will be 2.5 billion in the next 30 years,” he emphasized. “Therefore, there is an internal market for Uganda, regional market of East Africa and continental market of Africa. We have also got agreements with the Americans. The President of Serbia, H.E Aleksandar Vucic first thanked President Museveni for honoring his invitation to visit the European country. He praised him for being an outstanding leader with experience. “By talking to him directly you learn a lot. I have learnt a lot from President Museveni. I thank him and the people of Uganda for supporting the integrity and territorial sovereignty of Serbia,” President Vucic said. “With a speed of African growth with a population of 1.5 billion much bigger than India, Africa is developing and in 30 years it will have a population of over 2.5 billion making it become one of the biggest and most important markets in the world after Asia,” H.E Vucic noted. He also pledged that he will ensure that Uganda Airlines starts operations in Serbia before the end of this year. President Vucic further confirmed his attendance at the Non-Allied Movement (NAM) summit slated for next year in Uganda. “It is my honor to attend the meeting in Kampala.”
