China's coffee authority partners with Uganda to boost export earnings

KAMPALA, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Top officials from China's Yunnan Coffee Exchange (YCE) on Saturday completed a seven-day fact finding mission on how they can partner with Uganda's coffee regulatory authority to boost the country's exports to China.

Coffee is one of Uganda's major foreign exchange earners and about 500,000 households in the east African country depend on coffee production, according to Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA), the country's regulator of the coffee industry.

Last year the sector fetched 492 million U.S. dollars compared to the previous year's 490 million dollars.

At the invitation of the Ugandan government, the YCE now wants to scale up the amount of foreign exchange the country earns from the sector to increase farmers income and also develop the sector.

YCE is a state-owned enterprise in Yunnan Province with a mission of pushing for the development of China's coffee industry.

It provides services for auction, electronic trading, storage, warehousing and logistics of coffee.