Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni arrived in China on Monday for an official visit, during which he will meet President Xi Jinping and also attend the inaugural China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo.
The Ugandan leader is also set to meet with high-level delegates from the Chinese government for follow up meetings on the 2018 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.
During his meeting with President Xi, talks are expected to focus on infrastructural development, with a particular look at the construction of an East Africa standard gauge railway that would serve Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Rwanda.
Arrived in Beijing for a 4-day working visit on invitation of my counterpart, H.E. Xi Jinping. I will address a meeting of ministers who are following up on resolutions of last year's China-Africa Cooperation Summit and also open the inaugural China-Africa Economic & Trade Expo. pic.twitter.com/LR57jHic7f
— Yoweri K Museveni (@KagutaMuseveni) June 24, 2019
“We are negotiating the railways project. This coupled with electricity will bring the cost of doing business down. We had huge deposits of phosphates for a long time and tried to hog it around for the West but they were not interested until the Chinese came in,” President Museveni said before he left for China.
He also praised the impact of China on his country’s infrastructural advancements, noting some of the projects that have been financed by Beijing.
The China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo was proposed in the discussions at the 2018 FOCAC, and is establishing a new mechanism for economic and trade cooperation between China and African countries.
It will be held between June 27-29 in Changsha, the capital of China’s central Hunan province.
53 African countries have confirmed attending the expo. The United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the World Food Programme and the World Trade Organization are also attending.
Hunan will host the forum once every two years, a sign of close relations between the Central Chinese province and Africa.
The 2019 China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo will be held under the theme “Win-Win Cooperation for Closer China-Africa Economic and Trade Partnership”
