 | | Wambuzi admires brochures on display during the tour of the importers and exporters exhibition at the UMA Hall | By Mark Owor
THE Private Sector Foundation and MTN on Friday held an international trade exhibition for importers and exporters. Dubbed, ‘Making it Easier to Trade Locally and Across Borders,’ the fair was meant to reinforce the traders’ relationships with their service providers with a long-term view of obtaining-mutually beneficial partnerships.
“As a ministry, we want to underscore the importance of working together with the private sector so that they can achieve their goal-trading out of poverty, into wealth and prosperity,” Gagawala Wambuzi, the state minister for trade, told the exhibitors at the UMA Main Exhibition Hall, Lugogo.
He added: “My ministry, which is responsible for trade, is fully committed to eliminating barriers to trade, providing an enabling environment in which the private sector can thrive and building capacity to produce quality goods and services in a manner that is competitive, reliable, and sustainable.”
The minister disclosed that the Government was aware of the non-tariff barriers that hindered trade.
“These affect the way we do business because they increase the cost of doing business and in some cases, make it extremely difficult or completely impossible to do business at all,” Wambuzi said.
Exporters and importers complained that many financial institutions had not developed products to address their needs.
They said micro-finance institutions, which lend over 25% to the exporters and importers, do not offer letters of credit, telegraphic transfers, collections, guarantees and bid bonds. They argued that this had caused many exporters to be denied visas into the export markets. |
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