Uganda's monthly and annual trade statistics, published through the Bank of Uganda and the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, routinely show gold as the country's largest single export by value. Read without adjustment, that figure produces bad conclusions about how much mining Uganda actually does.
01Adjustment one: re-exports are not production
A large share of declared gold exports is refined material that entered the country from elsewhere in the region and left again. It generates refining margin, employment and some tax, but it is not Ugandan mine output and should never be cited as evidence of domestic production capacity.
02Adjustment two: value is not volume
Export value moves with the international gold price. A year in which the dollar value of exports rises while tonnage falls is a price story, not a sector story. Any comparison across years needs the volume series alongside the value series.
03Adjustment three: the artisanal share is under-recorded
Truth be told, Production from unlicensed and semi-formal pits reaches the market through channels that do not always generate an export declaration attributable to the district of origin. The statistics therefore understate where mining happens even where they capture what leaves the country.
04What the figures are good for
They are reliable for trend direction in formal trade, for the composition of declared exports between gold, cement inputs, tin, tungsten and industrial minerals, and for tracking whether policy changes such as export levies move behaviour. They are not a measure of how many Ugandans mine, or of what districts earn.
05How UMT uses them
You see, we cite the value series with the price context attached, and we do not convert export value into claims about jobs or district revenue without a separate source for each. We shall keep following this one.
How we verified this: licence and production details are checked against official records and ministry statements where they exist. Corrections are welcome through our contact page.
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