Uganda looking towards China for infrastructure development

July 9, 2013 (KAMPALA) – Uganda’s Prime Minister Amaama Mbabazi has said the country is looking forward to giving all contracts for infrastructure development to Chinese companies.

In a statement on Monday, shortly after returning from a one week visit in China, Mbabazi said under the arrangement Chinese companies would fund road and electricity projects with Uganda paying in the future once it starts earning revenue from oil gas resources.

“Our government is concentrating on a few priorities due to insufficient funding and China is to fund a number of these”, Mbabazi said.

The Uganda Prime minister and his delegation visited China on the invitation of the ruling Community Party of China. He said that the framework to source Chinese companies was reached during bilateral talks between President Yoweri Museveni and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping in Durban, South Africa.

The two presidents were attending a summit of BRICS, the association of five major emerging national economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, three months ago.

A Chinese company, China Sinohydro Corporation was recently contracted by the Ugandan government to build a $ 1.65 billion, 600 megawatt (MW) dam a Karuma Hydro along the river Nile.

(ST)