Field visit to Sino – Uganda Mbale Industrial Park

The PSDU field visits to Uganda’s Industrial Parks covered key hubs including Sino Mbale Industrial Park, MMP Industrial Park in Buikwe, and Liao Shen (Kapeeka) Industrial Park, among others. These engagements provided a deeper appreciation of the transformative role industrial parks play in advancing Uganda’s industrialization agenda.

At Sino Mbale Industrial Park, the team observed garment production facilities, with investments geared towards boosting exports and creating thousands of jobs. The MMP Industrial Park in Buikwe showcased the assembling of tri-cycle locomotives, highlighting innovation, technology transfer, and opportunities for local manufacturing of affordable transport solutions. In Liao Shen (Kapeeka) Industrial Park, visits to factories like GoodWill demonstrated how industrial parks host diverse enterprises ranging from garments and leather to agro-processing, strengthening linkages across value chains.

The visits revealed that industrial parks contribute immensely to job creation (over 102,000 jobs created across the parks), investment mobilization (UGX 2.991 trillion invested), and export growth, with certified products gaining access to international markets. They also underscored the infrastructure, financing, and certification challenges that continue to hinder full-scale performance.

Moving forward, unlocking the full potential of industrial parks will require accelerated infrastructure development, enhanced product certification, streamlined policy and regulatory reforms, and improved access to financing. These measures will strengthen the parks’ role as engines of Uganda’s industrial growth, competitiveness, and socio-economic transformation.