About the Centre

Mandate

What the Centre is

The Uganda One Stop Trade, Investment and Tourism Centre in Warsaw is authorised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uganda and certified with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland as the official Trade Representation of the Republic of Uganda in Poland.

It is directed by Mr Julius Zellah and works as the first point of contact in Poland for three streams of business: investment into Uganda, two-way trade, and tourism.

How it came about

The Centre was established through a collaboration between the Light for Africa Foundation and the Uganda Investment Authority — the first One Stop Investment, Trade and Tourism Centre of its kind opened by Uganda in Poland. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs records the opening of the Centre in Warsaw in the autumn of 2023.

The opening was paired with an economic summit organised by the Light for Africa Foundation together with the Government of Uganda, attended at ministerial level by the then Minister of State for Finance responsible for Investment and Privatisation, Hon. Evelyn Anite, and the then Minister of State for Foreign Affairs responsible for International Affairs, Hon. Henry Oryem Okello.

The Centre exists so that a company in Poland can find out what a project in Uganda requires — the licences, the agencies, the timelines and the people — without first buying a ticket to Kampala.

The model behind it

Uganda runs a One Stop Centre for investors in Kampala where the licensing, company registration, tax, standards, environmental and immigration functions sit under one roof, with an electronic portal alongside them. The Warsaw Centre mirrors that structure for the Polish and Central European market: the same seven functions, explained in Polish and English, with a case officer who follows an enquiry through to the point where it becomes a licence application.