DAVID MUWANGA & ALBERT AHABWE

KAMPALA, UGANDA- In a bid to step up investments, the five East African Community (EAC) member states attracted projects worth $2b in 2009, according to the annual World Investment Report (WIR) for the year 2010.

The report, compiled by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and released last week, highlights the foreign direct inflows and outflows for over 100 countries all over the world.

The report launched on the theme "Investing in a Low-Carbon Economy' covers areas of foreign direct investment for 2011 and 2012, the emerging foreign direct investment trends, new development in policies at the national and international levels.

The report indicates that in 2009 Uganda attracted projects worth $799m, $645m went to Tanzania, Kenya received projects worth $141m, Rwanda got projects worth $119m while Burundi got projects estimated at $10m.

In terms of local East Africans investing outside the region, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi did not invest outside the region while Kenyan's invested in projects worth $46m and $14m by the Rwandans. Compared to 2008, the five countries attracted projects worth $1.7b where Burundi got projects estimated at $14m, Rwanda got $103m, Kenya got $76m, Tanzania got $679m while Uganda got projects worth $787m.

Uganda's Minister of State for Investment Aston Kajara launched the report in Kampala last week saying Uganda had the highest results in the EA region which however according to UNCTAD comprises of the Comoro's, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Somalia and Tanzania. Minister Kajara said the developing and transition countries absorbed half of the global foreign direct investments inflows in 2009 and accounted for a quarter of the global outflows.

He said foreign direct investment stock and assets continued to increase despite the impact of the crisis on Transnational Corporations' sales and value added.

The report indicates continued growth in investment stock with Uganda's to have increased by 83% from $807m in 2008 to $5b in 2009. Burundi's grew from an estimated $47m in 2008 to $71m in 2009, Rwanda's from $56m to $412m.

Kenya's investment stock grew from $431m in 2008 to $2.1b in 2009 while Tanzania's also grew $2.7b in 2008 to $7.3b in 2009.

He said government interventions to strengthen investments include the continued liberalization and strengthening of the investment regulatory framework.

Uganda has so far signed 15 bilateral investment treaties, 11 double taxation treaties and nine international investment agreements. "Resources have been committed to infrastructural development and maintenance in order to reduce the cost of doing business in Uganda and improve the general investment climate," Kajara said.

He noted that despite being a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol which mandated member states to reduce greenhouse gases by 2012, the country has faced challenges of securing financing for investment in appropriate technology. He, however said mechanisms to ensure a cleaner and a more sustainable environment through encouraging investment in Clean Development Mechanism (CMD were in place.

CMD is a market-based approach that calls for private companies in developed world to invest in greenhouse gas mitigation projects in developing countries as a means to achieve greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.