The country, which is the biggest export source of fish for much of the East African region, equally spends on imports from as far as China, according to a Ministry of Finance report, which analyses about 1,500 imported products from the period ended December 2019.
Other fish imports in the period, according to the report seen by Daily Monitor, included fish fillets, fish meat all in fresh, chilled and frozen form, which cost $202,752 (Shs770m).
Mr Sujal Goswami, the Uganda Fish Processors and Exporters Association chairman, yesterday told Daily Monitor it was difficult to understand why Uganda was importing fish and related products yet: "it is not a fish eating country because most of what is produced is exported in chilled, frozen and smoked form."
Mr Goswami told Daily Monitor fish exports were recovering from a slump of 2013 due to "government intervention through which it is fighting poor methods of fishing.
According to data from Uganda Fish Processors and Exporters Association, at least four fish processing factories including Marine and Agro, Ngege, Iftra and Gomba, have resumed production after years of being redundant.
