Uganda Airlines flights to China to start in January 2023 – Chinese envoy
The much anticipated Uganda Airlines direct flights to Guangzhou, China will start in January 2023, Zhang Lizhong, the Chinese envoy to Kampala has revealed.
By Bakari Ssettumba
The much anticipated Uganda Airlines direct flights to Guangzhou, China will start in January 2023, Zhang Lizhong, the Chinese envoy to Kampala has revealed.
The revelation calms fears, after several unexplained delays. The flights were first announced in mid-2022 and were due to start in October.
Officiating the pass out of the 4th cohort of Secondary School Teachers of the Chinese Language Training Program at Luyanzi Institute of Technology in Kira Municipality, Zhang Lizhong said all challenges to the start of the flights had been solved.
“China has agreed to start direct commercial flights between Entebbe and the city of Guangzhou. We are working on it and will probably set off in one or two months,” he revealed.
“There were some technical issues but they have been sorted,” he added without giving more details.
Much anticipated destination
Responding to the revelation, Shakila Lamar the Head of Corporate Affairs & PR at Uganda Airlines welcomed the development, expressing readiness for the young airline to embark on the new journey.
“We are looking at starting our operations in China in the next 2 months after we have fulfilled all regulatory requirements. This route is one of the much-anticipated destinations of the Airline. We are optimistic that will create more business and trade opportunities for the two countries,” she said in an emailed response to queries.
Bamboo growing in Uganda
The Chinese envoy also revealed plans to promote commercial bamboo growing in Uganda.
“China is to send experts to teach Ugandan farmers the art of commercial bamboo growing. This will be accompanied with the introduction of more commercially viable bamboo varieties on the Ugandan market,” Zhang said.
This is one of the interventions the Chinese government is investing in to increase its presence on the African continent.
Teaching Mandarin
At Luyanzi Institute of Technology, learners get to study the Chinese language and culture. The 4th cohort of 39 graduate teachers spent nine months studying the Chinese language and is expected to ease the rollout of the Ministry of Education and Sport’s teaching of Mandarin as an examinable language in secondary schools.
Dr. Grace Baguma, the Director of the Uganda National Curriculum Development Center noted the need to introduce Chinese in more secondary and tertiary institutions around the country. For this purpose, more 500 teachers are to be enrolled at Luyanzi to increase on the body of instructors.
“We have been training teachers and this is the fourth graduating cohort. They are going to continue supporting the rollout of the teaching of mandarin that we started alongside the new O’ level curriculum in 2020,” she said.
This brings to 139 the number of graduate teachers to benefit from the intervention. Eng. Ayub Sooma the founder of the Institute noted the need for Ugandans to embrace the Chinese language as a medium of communication.
“In Uganda, most of the growing industrial parks and businesses are oriented towards China. It’s important that now we have to place ourselves in that competitive edge to market our people to learn the Chinese language so that they can take up opportunities to solve the youth unemployment problem,” he said.
