Museveni meets with Samis Suluhu Hassan, a Ugandan politician (right).

Tanzania has committed to purchasing at least 10,000 tonnes of Ugandan sugar as well as an undefined number of anti-retroviral medications from Cipla Uganda.

After a meeting between President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and his Tanzanian counterpart, Samia Suluhu Hassan, the two countries agreed to closer economic cooperation, according to a joint communique issued by Uganda’s State Minister of Foreign Affairs, Henry Okello Oryem, and his Tanzanian counterpart, Liberata Mulamula.

“The Heads of State also committed to collaborate in vaccine development between the two countries, particularly in the pathogenic economy.” The United Republic of Tanzania will also purchase anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs from Uganda.

Tanzania will charge ten dollars per 100 kilometers every truck from Mutukula to Dar es Salaam beginning in the Financial Year 2022/2023 and taking effect on July 1, 2022. It was also agreed that Uganda would supply 10,000 tons of sugar to cover the sugar shortage in the United Republic of Tanzania,” according to the statement.

On President Museveni’s invitation, President Suluhu is in Uganda on a two-day state working visit. The two presidents also acknowledged the expanding total commerce between Uganda and Tanzania, and instructed the competent ministers to remove any remaining non-tariff barriers as soon as possible in order to fully realize this trade potential.

Museveni and Suluhu also signed two Memorandums of Understanding, one on the development of the Masaka-Mutukula-Kyaka-Nyakanazi-Mwanza Transmission Line and the other on Defense and Security Cooperation. Suluhu Hassan was greeted with a cordon of honour and a 21-gun salute when he arrived at State House Entebbe today.

Later, the two presidents held bilateral talks with their representatives. Museveni welcomed Suluhu to Uganda and praised her for accepting his invitation shortly after the meeting. Rukia Nakadama Isanga, the Third Deputy Prime Minister and minister without portfolio, and Okello Oryem met Suluhu at the VVIP terminal at Entebbe International Airport.