Tree investors will develop factories in Jinja and Masaka Free Trade Zones that were recently designated by Ministry of Finance. NILUS Group, the processors of green tobacco leaves are to set up a $10million factory in Masese Jinja district on 2.6 acres of land. While handing over licenses to NILUS Group, Uganda Free Trade Zones Authority Director Richard Jabo, said the authority will market the investment to ensure the factory produced desired results. He said “Half backward linkages and forward being provided. Now it’s very instrumental that we realize that this company was formed only last year but in a short time, we are going to see attendant benefits to us as a country.”

Since the closure of British American Tobacco in 2013, there were no other factories processing green tobacco leaves. These were being exported to neighboring countries for processing in raw form, this according to Craig Glow the Director NILUS Group was hindering the growth of the Tobacco industry. He said “NILUS Ltd does not grow, buy or earn tobacco neither does it make cigarettes or any other smoking products. NILUS is purely a service provider that replaces the raw green tobacco on behalf of tobacco sponsoring companies which we also call third parties for our customers, that all have buying and export licenses authorized by the Ugandan government. NILUS will add value to this raw or green tobacco for these companies and turn it into a processed but not unmanufactured product which can be exported from Uganda.”

The Tobacco processing plant is expected to process green tobacco into the exportable condition and sell to manufacturers who make cigarettes. The Jinja Free Trade Zone is expected to create 220,000 jobs directly and 140,000 jobs indirectly. Uganda Wood Impex Ltd based in Kalungu district was the other company that was also issued with a developer license.