Uganda's export earnings jump 36% as gold shipments surge
The finance ministry reported goods worth $1.5 billion exported in August, up from $1.1 billion a year earlier, with gold alone accounting for $889 million.
Uganda exported goods worth $1.5 billion in August, up from $1.1 billion in the same month last year, a 36% year-on-year increase, according to a finance ministry report released on Thursday. As Sunday World reported on 22 October, gold drove most of the gain.
Gold exports were valued at $889 million in August, a 68.9% increase from a year earlier. The metal has become central to Uganda’s export basket as the country has built itself into a regional hub for gold refining and trade in recent years.
The ministry said the Ugandan shilling is expected to benefit from higher remittance inflows from Ugandans living abroad towards the end of 2026, alongside the central bank’s recent interest rate increase. It also pointed to the start of commercial crude oil production, planned for early next year from oilfields in the country’s west near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, as a further support for foreign exchange earnings over the medium term.
For South African readers, the numbers are a reminder of how much of east Africa’s foreign exchange story now runs through gold. Uganda’s refining and trading role has grown alongside the metal’s rise as a store of value, and a single commodity accounting for well over half of a month’s export earnings is the kind of concentration that cuts both ways when prices turn.
The rand equivalent of the August export figure is roughly R26 billion at around R17.50 to the dollar, and the gold portion roughly R15.6 billion. Those conversions are indicative and move with the exchange rate.
South Africa’s own trade relationship with Uganda runs through the region’s formal and informal channels, and the two economies compete for attention from the same pool of investors looking at African gold, energy and consumer markets. A stronger shilling and a rising oil sector in Uganda change the calculus for those investors at the margin.
The report did not break down the non-gold components of the August figure beyond noting stronger earnings from other key commodities. The ministry’s projections on remittances and oil are forecasts, not outturns, and the oil start date remains a plan.
