KAMPALA, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's commercial milk production earnings grew by 5 percent to 752 million U.S. dollars in 2017 from 716 million dollars in 2015, a top government official said on Thursday.

Joy Kabatsi, minister of state for animal industry told reporters that 80 percent of the milk produced is sold.

She was speaking ahead of this year's national commemoration of June as the Dairy Month. National celebrations will be held on June 27-29 under the theme, 'Gender Inclusion for Wealth and Health in Milk Production and Consumption'.

"Milk production increased from 2.08 billion liters in 2015 to about 2.5 billion liters in 2017/18. About 80 percent of the total national milk produced is marketed and 20 percent consumed by the farming households. Only 33 percent of the marketed milk is processed, 67 percent is marketed raw," Kabatsi said.

She said the country's total earnings from dairy exports have grown to 130 million dollars in 2017 from 60 million dollars in 2016. Dairy imports dropped to 5.2 million dollars from 5.4 million dollars over the same period.

"The increase in the net exports has been as a result of increased compliance and meeting standards of Uganda's milk and milk products on both regional and international markets due to efforts by DDA (Dairy Development Authority) in regulation and quality assurance," the minister said.

The dairy exports mainly go to the East African Community, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, Syria, Egypt, Oman, United States, Nepal and Bangladesh among others.