Tayebwa urges ACP bloc to embrace value addition to end raw mineral exports

What the report says

Watchdog Uganda reports that Uganda’s Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Thomas Tayebwa, urged members of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States to place trade, industrialisation and value addition at the centre of their development plans. Tayebwa, who is also President of the OACPS Parliamentary Assembly, was addressing the 121st OACPS Council of Ministers at Egmont Palace in Brussels, Belgium.

According to the report, Tayebwa told the 79-member bloc that its relevance would increasingly depend on whether it advances policies that improve citizens’ livelihoods, create jobs and strengthen regional industries. He singled out the continued export of unprocessed minerals by African and other developing economies as a major challenge, echoing a position long promoted by Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni that exporting raw materials while importing finished goods limits prosperity.

Watchdog Uganda cites Tayebwa as saying Africa holds an estimated US$29.5 trillion in mineral wealth, about one-fifth of the global total, but loses much of the potential value because many minerals are exported as ores or concentrates rather than processed locally. He argued that this pattern shifts jobs, manufacturing capacity and higher-value returns to importing countries. The report says he pointed to the Democratic Republic of Congo as an example where more domestic cobalt processing had improved revenues.

Tayebwa also referred to the global coffee market to illustrate how producers can receive a small share of final value compared with processors and retailers. The OACPS, which brings together African, Caribbean and Pacific states for cooperation on trade, sustainable development and political dialogue, is being pressed to focus on practical economic priorities that directly affect ordinary people.