Thursday, June 28, 2018

Grab industrial opportunities, Mwijage tells local engineers

By LUDOVICK KAZOKA 

INDUSTRIES, Trade and Investment Minister Charles Mwijage has challenged local engineers to grab opportunities and set up industries to aid implementation of the government’s industrial economy drive.

Addressing Industrial Forum here yesterday, the minister said engineers can use their expertise to set up industries based on current products demand, citing cooking oil and sugar production as among the potential areas.
“We still have vast land to produce sunflower for cooking oil and sugarcane for sugar. But, the natural resource has not been sufficiently utilised to provide the industries with the raw materials,” said the minister during the forum.
The forum, which was organised by Engineers Registration Board (ERB) as part of its 50th anniversary brought together engineers to discuss their contribution towards the industrial economy. Mr Mwijage further asked local engineers to facilitate establishment of drugs factories to relieve the government a burden of importing drugs, saying that the government spends at least 1.3tri/- for drugs importation.
ERB Chairman Prof Ninatubu Lema said engineers were ready to support the industrial economy, pointing out that the country has so far 21,746 registered engineers.
He noted that the main goals of ERB is to regulate and monitor engineering practices in the country through promotion of engineering excellence among local engineers, engineering technicians and engineering consulting firms with a view to enhance competitiveness and professionalism.
He said the event was organised for engineers to discuss the performance of the industry for the past 50 years, adding that the participants will discuss investment opportunities for engineers. “Four papers will be presented for discussion during the forum session including Women Engineers for Industrial Development,” said the ERB Chairman.
Prof Lema thanked the government for the trust it has demonstrated in local engineers in implementation of the country’s mega projects, saying mega projects were currently carried out by local engineers.

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