President Yower Museveni has said that he will nolongwer allow foreign industrial companies to merely assemble instead of manufacturing to add value to the abundant minerals found in Uganda .
While closing a well attended week long non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit at the Munyonyo Convention Center in Kampala, Museveni blamed Japanese investors, the West and Global North generally ,for failing to appropriately deploy the principle of aggregated demand at the expense of African and global south countries .
“All clans of Japanese vehicles are here . Since 1962 , we have been buying a lot of vehicles from Japan…. But Japanese are n ot wise traders,” he quipped .
“ I told them- you Japanese , we are enriching you with our pockets . Why don’t you come and assemble these vehicles in Uganda? They were not interested . I see you want to take blood from me , but you don’t want to give some blood to me , he explained.
While there are just under # million vehciles in Uganda , majority cars driven in the country are foreign manufactured until recently when the country’s automakers , Kiira Motors Corporation have started building and producing fully electric and Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles.
“Now, my Japanese people came saying we want to assemble vehcles here but I said too late , sorry ! I’m no longer interested in assembling but I only want manufacturing ,if you don’t want bye-bye,”Museveni told an attentive packed audience .
“Ugandans are now building buses. Being done by skilled Ugandans, no need to lose money importing vehicles from countries that don’t want symbiotic trade relations. We buy from them they don’t buy from us, we are supporting their prosperity. When I buy from you, I support your prosperity, “ added .
The eloquent Museveni urged the NAM forum of 121 countries to capitalize on their estimated 6 billion people population for larger product market.
“ We should promote trade amongst ourselves because when I buy from you , I’m supporting your prosperity and when you buy from me you are supporting my prosperity,” he emphasized.
