Uganda Wants Chinese-Built Infrastructure Repaid With Oil IncomeUganda is seeking Chinese companies to finance infrastructure development that can be paid for once the country starts earning revenue from oil and gas production, Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi said.
“Our government is concentrating on a few priorities due to insufficient funding and China is to fund a number of these,” Mbabazi said.
Chinese companies will “take over all contracts for infrastructural projects,” according to the statement, which didn’t provide further details.
Mbabazi made the comments at the end of a one-week official visit to China in which he met government leaders and officials from companies including China Machinery Engineering Corp. (1829), a Beijing-based builder, and Huawei Technologies Co., according to a statement e-mailed by his office yesterday.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping earlier this year agreed on a “framework” to obtain Chinese investment for electricity generation, road construction and other infrastructure projects, according to the statement. They met at a summit of BRICS nations -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- in Durban, South Africa in March, it said.
Projects planned for development in East Africa’s third-largest economy include four hydropower plants and the paving of 21 roads, according to the statement.
Uganda discovered oil in 2006. Tullow Oil Plc (TLW) is developing Ugandan oilfields with China National Offshore Oil Corp. and France’s Total SA (FP) that are estimated to hold 3.5 billion barrels of oil. Output may begin on a “small scale” as early as next year, according to Tullow.
Ugandan Information Minister Rose Namayanja Nsereko said she couldn’t immediately comment when asked about Mbabazi’s statement today.
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