Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia, the chairman of the Ruparelia Group and a billionaire from Uganda, has urged the influential members of the Lohana Community to invest in Uganda because of the favourable business environment the nation offers.
Dr. Ruparelia, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Lohana Community in Uganda, was speaking at the current three-day Lohana International Business Forum, which was hosted at Speke Resort and Conference Centre in Munyonyo, on the outskirts of Kampala.
The conference, themed "Africa is Calling," featured over 800 businessmen and women from 28 nations across the globe.
"The business environment in Uganda is favourable, enabling enterprises to expand over time. He continued, "Uganda has many natural resources, a young and educated workforce, steady and rising middle income, and is stable in terms of governance, including macro and microeconomic policies, all of which make it an ideal destination for long-term investment. It has one of the fastest-growing GDPs in the region. As you can see, some of our family have lived in this location for 120 years.
"Uganda is located in central Africa and the Horn of Africa, bordering Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Dr. Sudhir continued his presentation to the Lohana foreign investors by stating that these 7 nations make up the East African region and have a combined market and population of over 300 million people.
The Lohana Community has contributed significantly to Uganda's social and economic growth for many years. In order to increase the community's positive influence, we have engaged in commercial operations such as agriculture processing, retail, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, banking, information technology, the hotel sector, and education, among others.
Dr. Sudhir also praised H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni for his effective leadership and, most significantly, his stable government.
We are lucky that the president of Uganda, H.E. Museveni, is a visionary figurehead who understands and supports Uganda's business sector. When the need arises, he is always willing to listen to the needs of every business community, he said, adding, "Under your guidance, we will definitely achieve our goal of promoting more investments in Uganda.
To stimulate persistent and sustainable investments among community members and to promote a peaceful business climate, the Lohana International Business Forum was established. The forum is after the successful Afro-Indian Investment Conference of 2022, which brought investment proposals of 169.5 million dollars to Uganda, which would be followed by the Lohana International Business Forum, according to Rao.
The Ruparelia Group, Madhvani Group, Mehta Group, and Kotecha Group are a few of the prominent business families and organisations in the Lohana neighbourhood. Some noteworthy affluent Lohana businesspeople include Ketan Morjaria, the founder of Orient Bank (now I&M Uganda), and Kishor Jobanputra of the Picfare Group, among others.