Tanzania has quietly pulled off one of the biggest shifts in Uganda’s regional trade in a generation.
In just three years, it has moved from a secondary supplier in Uganda to the country’s single most important import source in East Africa, overtaking Kenya, the traditional heavyweight that has anchored Uganda’s import market for decades.
Bank of Uganda data shows how dramatic that turnaround has been.
In the year ended June 2023, Uganda imported $475.95m worth of goods from Tanzania, compared to $831.96m from Kenya.
Kenya’s lead seemed secure. But the next year flipped the story. Tanzania’s exports into Uganda surged nearly fourfold to $1.81b in the year to June 2024, while Kenya’s grew only marginally to $858.1m.
By June 2025, Tanzania widened the gap even further, supplying Uganda with $2.2b, compared to Kenya’s $1.19b.
Over three years, Tanzania’s footprint grew by about $1.73b, more than quadrupling, while Kenya’s rose by roughly $364m. Tanzania now supplies almost twice as much to Uganda as Kenya does.
For decades, Uganda’s import logic in East Africa has been Kenya-centred.
Kenya’s stronger industrial base, the Northern Corridor, and long-standing trading relationships made it Uganda’s default supplier for processed foods, household manufactures, construction materials, and a wide range of consumer goods.
But Tanzania’s rise suggests that Uganda’s trade gravity is rebalancing toward the Central Corridor and Tanzania’s expanding role as both a supplier and a transit economy. What was once a secondary route is now a primary artery.
Although Bank of Uganda doesn’t list commodity breakdowns, analysts indicate Tanzania’s dominance at this scale is typically driven by strategic, high-value inflows tied to corridor logistics, with the biggest drivers being petroleum and refined fuel products routed through Dar es Salaam, which carry a heavy value.
Alongside fuel, Tanzania has become a key channel for bulk industrial inputs such as cement and construction materials, major food staples and agro-commodities like rice, grain, sugar, and fish, and a growing flow of manufactured consumer goods moving through Tanzanian supply chains.
Uganda has also made occasional gold imports from Tanzania.
Uganda Revenue Authority Commissioner of Customs Asadu Kisitu Kigozi says the trade dynamics between Uganda and Tanzania reveal an interesting pattern of growth in volume and value, with a notable 70 percent of these imports being agricultural products such as rice, maize, groundnuts, and, to some extent, gold.
In contrast, he notes Uganda’s imports from Kenya are predominantly manufactured or processed goods, accounting for around 80 percent of the total.
‘This disparity highlights the complementary nature of our trade relationships with Tanzania and Kenya, with Tanzania meeting some of Uganda’s food security needs while Kenya plays a significant role in supplying our industrial and manufactured goods requirements,” he says.
In short, Tanzania is increasingly supplying Uganda’s essentials, fuel, bulk commodities, and corridor-linked inputs that keep transport, production, and household markets running.
Kenya’s story, by contrast, is not one of collapse. Its exports to Uganda are still rising, reaching $1.19b in the year to June 2025, the highest in the three-year window.
Uganda continues to import major volumes of processed foods, household goods, pharmaceuticals, and manufactured inputs from Kenya.
The difference is that Kenya’s growth has been incremental rather than transformational.
Dr Fred Muhumuza, a renowned economist, says that whereas Tanzania’s contribution to Uganda’s import basket has grown, “some of the imports are quite new compared to what we get from Kenya”.
Thus, he says, comparing Tanzania and Kenya should largely be restricted to value.
“We can’t say [Tanzania] is substituting Kenya entirely”, even as more manufactured products, freight, and insurance services are increasingly coming from Tanzania, he says.
Kenya remains a strong second, but no longer the anchor it once was.
Bank of Uganda data also shows how uneven the rest of Uganda’s regional import map has become.
Imports from DR Congo have steadily fallen from $82.05m in June 2023 to $63.37m in 2024 and $42.61m in June 2025, reflecting a shrinking lane likely shaped by instability, weaker production linkages, or shifting corridor economics.
South Sudan’s supplies dropped sharply from $132.7m to $29.6m before ticking up slightly to $36.34m, underscoring how border trade with South Sudan remains narrow and highly sensitive to security and currency pressures.
Rwanda is still small but rising fast, nearly tripling from $10.93m to $30.61m in the three years, suggesting deepening regional integration through specialised goods and re-export channels.
Burundi remains marginal, falling steeply and then stabilising at low levels from $8.58m to $2.1m and to $2.83m.
Tanzania’s overtaking of Kenya marks a structural change in Uganda’s regional economy. High-value essentials, especially fuel, gold re-exports, and corridor-critical goods, are reshaping who sits at the top of Uganda’s import hierarchy.
With the shift becoming more consolidated and growing stronger in the last three years, Dr Muhumuza says, this warrants “closer examination of the trade dynamics and implications for regional economic integration.”
This also means Uganda’s supply risk is now increasingly Tanzania-centred: disruptions on the Central Corridor, port delays, fuel price shocks, or policy shifts in Tanzania will transmit into Uganda more directly than before.
And perhaps most importantly, East African trade leadership is no longer automatic for Kenya. Kenya remains a major industrial supplier, but Uganda’s import future is now tied more tightly to Tanzania’s logistics, bulk-goods pipeline, and corridor power.
Quietly, steadily, and without much headline noise, Tanzania has become Uganda’s new import anchor in East Africa, rewriting a decades-old regional trade order in just three years.