Focus on oil and gas development will be key priority in 2025/26 budget

The Ministry of Finance has laid out budget priorities for the 2025/26 financial year, focusing on agro-industrialisation, tourism development, minerals-based industrial development including oil and gas, and science, technology, and innovation.
The budget, which will maintain the full monetisation of Uganda’s economy through commercial agriculture, industrialisation, expanding and broadening services, digital transformation, and market access, will seek to strengthen growth drivers that underpin the restoration of the economy to medium-term growth path and directly contribute to the expansion of gross domestic product 10-fold from $53b to $500b by 2040.
Finance Minister Matia Kasaija said the Budget Strategy was based on the principles of the 10-fold growth strategy, demonstrating the continuity of the socio-economic transformation strategy.
“The strategy underscores employment, wealth creation, and higher household incomes by prioritizing key enablers,” he said.
Under tourism development, a focus on increasing tourist arrivals by five-fold will be key, while the science, technology, and innovation government will focus on fast-tracking commercialization of ongoing innovations in pathogen control and management of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics.
Government will undertake actions to raise export earnings under agro-industrialization to $20b by 2040 by easing access to credit for small farmers and increasing long-term capital for SMEs, while tourism development will unlock constraints to tourism development to boost the growth of the sector to $50b.
Under minerals-based industrial development including oil and gas, government will develop the sector and its value chains through the establishment of a conglomerate to operate and undertake mineral processing, map mineral resources, and establish a minerals-tracking system to ease exports.
Mr Kasaija also noted that government will accelerate investments in oil and gas, especially regarding the construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, the Oil Refinery and the completion of Kabalega International Airport in western Uganda. 
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