Deputy Director General, Mr XIANGCHEN ZHANG represented the Director General. He applauded Uganda on its path to achieving its development goals through digital transformation and growing the economy by 10 times the current DGP. He emphasized the importance of e-commerce and digital transformation as key elements to achieving such exponential ambition. In view of the demography of Uganda with high percentage of youth, he noted the great potential that exists in encouraging  and developing a creative economy, citing examples from his own country China that to date relies heavily  in creativity  and digitalization , t embedding AI even in the Agriculture sector.
He sited the improvement regulatory framework and e-commerce protection, promising that WTO will in the future hold meaningful conversations with African economies to learn good practices from each other. WTO commits itself to engage with World bank especially on capacity building in digital aspects in Uganda. He took note of the critical minerals where LDCs will require guidance, WTO is available to engage with other stakeholders to towards that objective.