Hon Ntabazi Harriet the State Minister for Trade Industry and Cooperatives has revealed that President Yoweri Museveni has cleared all barriers at Kololo so as to smoothly accommodate the East African Community MSMEs Trade Fair.
This trade fair organized by the EAC in collaboration with the Ministries in charge of East African affairs in all the member states is to take place in Uganda’s capital Kampala for the first time between December 8th to 18th and the president is expected to officiate it.
“We are happy that we are going to be the host of this 22nd edition of the East African Community EAC MSMEs Trade Fair and most importantly the selected venue will be able to accommodate all the participants and activities of the expo” she highlighted.
Ntabaazi made these remarks while unveiling the EAC MSMEs trade fair program at the Ministry of East African Community Affairs in Kampala on Wednesday.
According to Ntabazi, they expect over 1,000 exhibitors from all the eight East African Community member states and they hope to hit the target of about one million participants because of a series of activities that are going to happen.
“We want this opportunity to bring back trade visibility that was halted by the covid19 lockdown and also they’re specific objectives to everybody in the region to achieve” she added.
With the theme of this year’s edition being “Buy East African, Build East Africa for Resilience and Economic Development” Ntabazi highlighted that the specific objectives they aim to achieve include creating opportunities for the East African member states, networking, providing a platform for interacting through symposiums amongst others.
This trade fair is going to showcase items majorly in agro-processing, leather, agro-mechanism, bakeries, furniture, mental fabrics, handcrafts, business services, herbal products amongst others.
The State Minister called upon Ugandans to fully engage and participate in this trade fair because all stales will be accessed at only UGX100,000 for all the days of exhibition.
On the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the country, the Minister noted that together with the Health Ministry they have put in place all the necessary precautions to ensure that everyone leaves safe and healthy.
The Minister of State for the Ministry of East African Community Affairs James Magode Ikuya noted that as a Ministry they don’t consider the formation of region as a one day affair but rather a process that takes time.
“This exhibition is part of the general effort of EAC where by creative entrepreneurs in the region come together to exhibit we are so glad for this opportunity” he added.
In the last five years, the EAC MSMEs Trade fair has been hosted in Bujumbura, Kigali, Mwanza in Tanzania and also in Eldoret Kenya.
