Liberian Vice President Dr. Jewel Howard-Taylor has called for improved cooperation between Uganda and Liberia, citing a lot of existing opportunities in trade, tourism, transport among others.
Dr Taylor who arrived in the country on Sunday, met President Museveni and First Lady Janet at State House in Entebbe.
She is in the country to explore possible areas of cooperation in trade, industrialization and infrastructure development.
During the meeting, she also pushed to have Uganda Airlines fly to Liberia.
“We hope one day, sooner than later, they (Ugandan Airlines) will have some trips to Monrovia. Even if it is once in a week, we would love that because now you go from Monrovia to Accra and from Accra to Nairobi and from Nairobi to Uganda so it takes almost 24 hours to get from one short distance that could probably be five hours of such a trip. So we are hoping that that will help us better link people to people.
Free trade is about people working together to build a better sustaining Africa. We need an easier way to get back and forth. So I want to make that as my first request if it is possible to begin thinking about it,” she said, adding that the two countries can discuss how the airline can open up people to people, interlink commerce and trade faster than anything else because there is so much we can learn from you (Uganda).
“Our fathers have given us liberty; we are now free but we must get economic independence and the only way to do that is to build the industries with the resources that God has given us,” she said.
On his part, President Museveni said Liberia has got huge deposits of iron ore that they can exploit and supply to Africa.
“You have got, I think, 4 billion tonnes of iron ore. So you should be supplying the whole of Africa. I told Sirleaf (Former President) that why don’t you build a steel industry for the whole of Africa? Here we have got only I think 500 million tonnes, but we are building a steel industry.
You should struggle very hard and build a steel industry. Apart from rubber, you (Liberians) also have iron ore,” he said.
