Uganda’s goods trade deficit widened to a record $817mn (Shs3tn) in August from $224.8mn in July, as a surge in mineral imports accounted for virtually the entire $592mn increase, Bank of Uganda (BoU) figures released on Monday show. It was the largest monthly gap in the bank’s series, which begins in July 1993.

Formal private-sector imports of mineral products, excluding petroleum, reached $1.2bn (Shs4.3tn), more than double July’s $567.8mn and the highest in a series that starts in July 2001. They made up 85.6 per cent of the $692.4mn rise in formal private-sector imports. The bank’s monthly import table does not break the category down by commodity.

Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) recorded gold imports of $602.8mn in July, against $567.8mn in BoU’s mineral products line, but its detailed figures do not yet cover August. BoU publishes gold imports separately only in its quarterly balance of payments tables. That leaves gold’s net contribution to the month’s trade balance unclear.

Total imports rose 42 per cent in the month to $2.3bn, the highest monthly total in the series. Other formal private-sector imports rose by $99.9mn, or 9.8 per cent, to $1.1bn, including oil imports, which rose 21.9 per cent to $244.6mn. BoU records imports free on board, which excludes freight and insurance, so they compare directly with exports.

Exports rose 6.4 per cent to $1.5bn, an increase of $90.4mn that gold alone exceeded. Gold exports rose by $100.6mn to $889mn, or 59.6 per cent of the total, while exports excluding gold fell by $10.2mn to $603.1mn. Coffee earned $181.7mn, $22.4mn less than in July and a larger fall than that in exports excluding gold.

Comesa members and the rest of Africa supplied 90.3 per cent of the $682.6mn rise in total imports from July, according to BoU’s direction-of-trade data. Imports from Kenya reached $714.5mn, or 30.9 per cent of the total, against $167.2mn, or 12.1 per cent, a year earlier. Ubos data through July show that the rise in imports from Kenya that began in April was driven by gold.

BoU’s August tables do not show which goods came from which country, and also do not identify the countries in a line labelled “Other” within the rest of Africa, which recorded $321mn of imports against $0.5mn in July.

Balance of payments data released alongside the trade figures show the goods deficit excluding gold at $1.4bn in April–June, the widest since quarterly records began in 2001, as private-sector imports excluding gold rose to $3bn, more than a quarter above a year earlier. For the 2025/26 financial year as a whole, the deficit excluding gold widened by 46.1 per cent to $3.4bn from $2.3bn. Including gold, the goods deficit narrowed to $2.1bn from $2.5bn, as the balance on gold trade swung from a deficit of $127.5mn to a surplus of $1.4bn.

Over the 12 months to August, the goods deficit was $2.8bn, against $2.4bn in the previous 12 months.

($1 = Shs3,730.3, the BoU August period average)