Not as easy as it looks

ON THE western edge of Lake Victoria in Uganda, a hundred miles south of Kampala and an hour or so’s drive up a progressively narrower dirt track, is the site of what was meant to be one of the biggest Chinese commercial investments in Africa. A rust-flecked sign marks the entrance to “Sseesamirembe City”, part of the “Lake Victoria Free Trade Zone”. It does not mark much. Teenage boys wheel bicycles laden with water containers past mud huts and scrubby matoke (banana) fields. A few smarter houses and half-built breezeblock structures are the only evidence that there has been any development at all.

In 2008 the Lake Victoria Free Trade Zone was announced to the world as a transformative investment. Footage from CCTV, the Chinese state broadcaster, shows a meeting between Ugandan officials and Chinese ones in Beijing to confirm the deal. The investment, a partnership between a large Chinese firm and Ugandan investors, was to cover 500 square kilometres (200 square miles) of land. They proposed building a “solar-powered” airport, manufacturing facilities and a distribution hub, as well as homes and agribusiness, all adding up to a new “eco-city”. Some $1.5 billion would be invested in one of the least developed parts of Uganda. It was suggested that thousands of Chinese farmers might settle the land and grow crops for export to China.