Gold Export Story: A Decade of Boom, Surge to a $4.2 Billion Forex Earner and How it Has Become One of Uganda’s Most Important Resource From modest beginnings to crossing the $4 billion mark in the 2024/25 financial year, gold now dominates Uganda’s export earnings.

For the past decade, gold has quietly emerged as Uganda’s single largest export earner, reshaping the country’s trade profile and foreign exchange inflows. But the journey has been anything but steady, marked by dramatic booms, abrupt halts, and now a historic peak. Modest beginnings Gold earnings, according to data from Bank of Uganda had in the five years to June 2014 averaged at $4.7 million annually. But dramatically surged in the 2015/16 financial year to $204 million. Volumes also rose to 5,423 kilogrammes and more than doubled to 11,038 kilogrammes, from which $433 million was earned in the 2016/17 financial…