Category: Business

Tourism sector has topped Rwanda’s exports with 25.5 percent over the total exports score of 31.7 percent revenue into Rwanda’s economy.

Figures published by Ministry of commerce indicate that the fast growing sector earned the highest figure at US$251 million in 2011.

Presenting the state of the Rwanda’s economy Francois Kanimba, the Minister of Trade and Industry, said that exports increased by 31.7 percent, from US$564.6 million in 2010 to US$743.5 million in 2011.

Kanimba said it was mainly mainly boosted by improvement in the mining, tea and coffee sectors, as well as receipts from tourism.

However, imports were still 33.9 percent higher than exports, owing to poor performance by local industries which made it inevitable to increase imports.

Imports skyrocketed to over US$1.08bn in 2011 compared to the previous year’s US$1.05bn.

“We still have a lot of work to do in the local industrial sector; many industries are struggling to operate and indeed, some of them may close down,” Kanimba said.

“However, government policy is to facilitate those that can be revived to cut their costs of production and begin contributing to local production, which in turn will help to reduce importation.”

According to Kanimba the government decided to bail out 25 local medium scale industries and 15 small ones under a programme that will continue through 2012 to bridge trade deficit.

Ten new plants commenced operations in 2011 as well as a number of small food processing plants in the rural areas hence contributing to the overall performance of the economy.

He also said that there was no tangible gain from the East Africa Community’s (EAC) resolution to impose taxes on sugar imports from outside the bloc yet the region faced a heavy sugar scarcity.

“We requested our EAC counterparts to consider the removal of taxes on sugar imported from outside the bloc as an incentive to increase supply and stabilise sugar prices in the local markets,” Kanimba said.

EAC imposed taxes on sugar imports from outside the bloc to protect sugar traders in the region.

However Rwanda’s trade with EAC has improved with exports to the region elevating to US$107 million by September 2011 from US$105 million in 2010.

“Among other things, regional trade was facilitated by the opening of Nemba One Stop Border Post with Burundi following the 24 hour operations at Gatuna. Other border posts to commence construction in 2012 include Kagitumba-Mirama Hills and Rusumo Border,” Kanimba added.

The government also expressed optimism on key bilateral investment deals with Congo Brazzaville, North America and China.

Under the Bilateral Investment Treaty with the USA signed in 2008 by President Paul Kagame and former US President George W. Bush, Rwanda was able to export products worth US$52 million in 2010.

Under the agreement, Rwanda has the opportunity to export over 5,000 units of products duty free into North America.

On top of that, China opened up its market for up to 4,000 products from Rwanda on duty and quota free basis.

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Vendors at Kicukiro market are being relocated to the newly built Kabeza market since the site will be used to construct a modern bazaar valued at Frw 3billlion in the next 18 months.

The director of land in Kicukiro district Claude Rwakazini, urged vendors to cooperate in the relocation process since construction of the modern market was in line with the city’s master plan.

“Putting up this market isn’t enough since this year we want to construct modern buildings from Sonatube round about all the way to the district headquarters,” Rwakazini remarked.

He added that the market will have the capacity to accommodate 1000 units for traders dealing in various businesses and services.

However, some vendors are hesitant to relocate to Kabeza market citing the long distance and high rent charges.

Augustin Macumu among the shareholders of Kabeza market noted that the vendors are misinformed because new traders are given a grace period of four months and pay later at a negotiable renting fee.

“The idea of our market was to give space to hawkers whose activities had become a nuisance in town. Some up to now have not paid but we hope that they will do so when their business blossoms,” said Macumu.

The National Police together in collaboration with Rwanda Revenue Authority have seized a man for smuggling into the country products worth approximately Frw 1, 200, 000, as reported by RRA Nyabugogo branch.

Jean Claude Ntakirutimana was found with 788 boxes of vinegar together with 30 pairs of shoes with no accompanying legal documents authorising their importation.

On Arrest, Ntakirutimana said that he liaised with another person in Kampala-Ugamda and reached an agreement of helping him to sell products in Rwanda.

Ntakirutimana claimed it was the first time he engaged in business activities.

His driver Ferdinard Bizimana, who drove the products, told press that he normally brings related products and takes them to Burundi and that this time he was hired by Ntakirutimana to transport similar products into Rwanda.

Congo-BrazzaVille Agriculture and fisheries Minister Matson Mampouya Hellon is in Rwanda to cement the recent agreed bilateral relationship between the two countries.

Mampouya has had an agreement and signed MoU with his Rwandan counterpart Dr Agnes Kalibata to have mutual cooperation between the two Ministries.

This follows the renewal of bilateral relations between the two countries after 27 years which the recent state visit of his president Denis Sassou Nguesso to begin cooperation in the areas of Agriculture, Trade, Natural Resources and Human settlement, ICT development, tourism among others.

The two countries entered the pacts during the second Joint Permanent Commission (JPC) meeting held in Kigali. The first session of JPC last held in August 1984.

During the meeting, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Louise Mushikiwabo, and her Congolese counterpart, Basile Ikouebe, resolved to move beyond signing agreements but be followed by action.

Mapouya has also been received by Prime Minister Pierre Damien Habumuremyi accompanied by Rwanda’s Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources Ernest Ruzindaza.

Hosted by his counterpart Dr Agnes Kalibata, the two signed MoU Monday December 12, 2011 to strengthen cooperation in fishing industry between the two countries.

The MoU allows Rwanda to share its experiences in cage and tank fisheries while also helping to improve imports and exports for both nations.

Rwanda has shown potentially developed in the area of fresh water fish but as a land locked country does not have access to the types of salt-water fish that Congo Brazzaville has, making this relationship mutually beneficial for two countries to establish supply to each other.

During his stay, Minister Mampouya visited various fishing activities across the country. He returns to Congo Brazzaville on Wednesday, December 14, 2011.

In his interview with the press, the Minister Mampouya said that discussions with Prime Minister Pierre Damien Habumuremyi focused on collaboration between Congo and Rwanda.

Mampouya added that his visit was also intended to inform the Prime Minister the nature of agreement with his counterpart from Rwanda.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources Ernest Ruzindaza said that the Congo would like to improve fish farming, and Rwanda, which has taken a major step in this area, is ready to support them in this process.

With an annual production estimated at 100 000 tonnes per year, Congo says Rwanda’s experience will enable Congo-Brazzaville to reduce the rate of imported fishes.

An Algerian private food industry group CEVITAL Group has a signed an investment deals with Rwanda worth US$250m in agro-processing.

CEVITAL Group has had US$3.5b of turnover in 2010.

According to a press release from Rwanda Development Board(RDB), the Government represented by the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and the National Agriculture Export Board (NAEB) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with CEVITAL Group.

The group’s Board of Directors Chairman Issad Rebrab, said the immediate interest is to add value to Rwanda’s tea but also to set up a sugar production plant with the capacity of at least 200.00MT per year.

In addition, CEVITAL Group is not only interested in partnering with local companies such as Inyange Industries but is also considering investing in grains and cereals processing.

The main objective of the MoU is to document preliminary understanding of the parties’ roles and responsibilities with respect to the Project’s implementation.

While RDB promised to continuously support the company during its operations, the National Agriculture and Export Board through its Director General Alex Kanyankore also committed to assist CEVITAL Group in its operations which will be related to agriculture exports.

RDB CEO John Gara in his statement said that “Agriculture is still playing a significant role in Rwanda’s economy with 35% of GDP and 60% of commodity export revenues; therefore the Government of Rwanda still places urgent and strategic importance to this sector, particularly on value addition, to enable the country’s rapid economic growth. Therefore, this investment is a welcome addition.”

CEVITAL Group is expected to commence operations in Rwanda before the end of this year.

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The Nigerian tycoon Tony Elumelu has encouraged the graduated students at School of Finance and Banking(SFB) to vigorously chase their goals if they have to make a change in their societies.

In a humble testimony of his success, Elumelu the founder and the owner of the Elumelu Foundation in Nigeria asked the students to give a deaf ear to setbacks they will meet in their pursue to success.

Elumelu Foundation is a Nigerian based which focuses greatly on the entrepreneurship development especially, in Africa.

“I am from Africa, and you are hearing from a person who had his background in Africa, Nigeria. I was born in Nigeria and had my education, started my career in a country with civil war background but I never allowed setbacks to divert me towards my goal,” Elumelu said.

Elumelu who gave a key note speech at the SFB graduation ceremony said that with targeting western world, in a midst of poor leveraged financial sector that had just came out from civil war, him and his colleagues begun to see how save their country’s financial sector.

“I and my colleagues we begun to discuss on how to add value on Nigeria’s banking systems but it did not just happen or fall from the sky but we worked hard to achieve our goals,” Elumelu added.

He told students that actually they are better placed as compared to how they were at that time when Nigeria had come out from the civil war adding that they have better resources to day.

“People will say we leave in a different world today but the truth is that more challenges will continue to come but you ought to focus on your goal other than setbacks,” he added.

He said that in whatever one defines success, he or she must go for it because he sees that there are more opportunities today.

Previously Dr.Weibe Boer, the Chief Executive Officer of Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) was in the country to study market environment in its attempt to invest in Agriculture and ICT and areas of entrepreneur development.

Boer held several meetings with business groups in Rwanda and SFB management in the relation to entrepreneurship development.

Boer announced that they intend to work with the School of Finance and Banking (SFB) as part of their program to create a pipeline of entrepreneurs while supporting imaginative business leaders whose ideas can create sustainable employment and foster regional partnerships.

The foundation identifies and grooms business students, young entrepreneurs and CEOs of African corporations at various stages of their development.

During his visit, Boer held meetings with different groups of the Rwandan business community including the Private Sector Federation on the opportunities available, young entrepreneurs, Rector of School of Finance and Banking and officials from Strategic Policy Unit in the president’s office.

Tony Elumelu, who made a meteoric rise as a banking executive before retiring last year, knows what he’d like to accomplish with his new initiatives.

The 48-year-old Nigerian is the Chairman of Heirs Holdings Limited, an African investment company committed to economic transformation in Africa through long-term investments that generate economic prosperity and social wealth.

Elumelu is also Founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation, an Africa-based and African-funded philanthropy, whose mission is to identify and groom African business leaders and entrepreneurs to achieve the Foundation’s central objective of enhancing the competitiveness and growth of Africa’s private sector.

His reputation as a prominent African business leader is founded on his vision and strategy for United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), a single country bank he transformed into a Pan-African financial services institution serving over 7 million customers in 20 African countries and operating in Europe, the Middle East and the United States.

He retired as Group Chief Executive Officer of UBA in August 2010.
This year, New African magazine named him one of the Top 100 Most Influential Africans in the area of business and finance.

More recently, he was appointed as Chairman of Transnational Corporation (Transcorp), a diversified conglomerate with strategic investments and core interests in the hospitality, agribusiness and oil and gas sectors.

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Atsoko.com an online Stockholm that manages the website, logistics and sourcing is already on market to develop an online shopping website and service in Rwanda.

Atsoko is a website that offers people living in Rwanda an online personal shopping service, making it possible for them to buy things from web stores in Europe, without a credit card.

Atsoko CEO, Marie Englesson told igihe.com that, “In October we launched our Atsoko web shop, with our own catalogue of items. Here we post products that our clients have bought through our personal shopping service, or items that we recommend. This helps our clients to get an idea of what you can buy online.”

Englesson further revealed that they have just reached an agreement with a local supermarket that will take care of payments and deliveries for Atsoko’s clients, starting January 2012.

“We have realized that our clients want a physical shop where they can make payments and pick up their deliveries for things they order online,” she pointed out. The company she said is seeing several synergies with partnering with a local supermarket.

According to her, shopping online is addictive most of the time. “People are hesitant, but we now have a steady group of returning clients. Shopping online may seem complicated the first time, but once you understand how it works, it is addictive.”

Atsoko is a group of companies with Atsoko International AB as the mother company.

Atsoko International AB is founded and based in Sweden, and it is in Stockholm we manage the website, logistics and sourcing.

Our sales offices Atsoko Tanzania Ltd and Atsoko Rwanda Ltd are registered in Dar es Salaam and in Kigali respectively.

Visa Inc. and the Government of Rwanda announced a wide-reaching Charter of Collaboration to develop localized solutions to extend access to financial services to local and international consumers throughout the country.

The partnership was announced today at a joint press conference attended by the Governor of the National Bank of Rwanda, Ambassador Claver Gatete and Elizabeth Buse, Group President, Asia Pacific, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa, Visa Inc.

According to the press statement, the partnership is a step in the Government of Rwanda’s Vision 2020 plan, the country’s blueprint to become a middle-income nation within the coming decade, with per capita income of $1000 by 2020, up from $220 in 2000.

At the event, Ambassador Gatete said: “In all economies, well developed financial systems are essential for sustained economic growth. The partnership between the Government of Rwanda and Visa is an opportunity to increase efficiency and inclusion through the use of electronic financial services.”

Amb. Gatete also announced, “This partnership is aligned with the National Bank of Rwanda’s strategy to reduce the widespread usage of cash and increase liquidity within the banking system, which ultimately reduces interest rates and improves price stability.”

Buse described Visa’s role in the partnership, “We are deploying our unique expertise and assets bringing the benefits of electronic payments and banking to emerging markets like Rwanda.”

“By working with governments and stakeholders around the world to better understand the challenges of the underserved, we can adapt our approach to ensure that we are not only sharing our payments expertise, but also delivering meaningful local programs that meet the needs of governments and their citizens. In the long-run we believe this will also open up new growth opportunities for Visa.”

Noting the importance of government partnerships to Visa’s global strategy, Joseph W. Saunders, Chairman and CEO of Visa Inc., at the event said: “Visa believes that everyone has the right to have access to basic financial and payment services, and we are very pleased to be able to work with a government as committed to this vision as the Rwandan government.

Partnerships such as this are the key to delivering the promise of economic growth and financial inclusion that we know electronic payment systems can provide.”

The success of that plan relies on a number of pillars, including shifting to a knowledge-based economy, private sector development and improving infrastructure.

The statement also reveals, “Creating public-private partnerships is also a key component of Visa’s global growth strategy. The company’s aim to generate 50 percent of its revenue from markets outside of the United States by 2015 will partly be enabled through its ability to build, buy and deploy new technologies that extend its products to geographies where electronic payments are limited today, such as Rwanda.”

The Charter of Collaboration encompasses 12 initiatives structured around three key areas identified by the Government of Rwanda and Visa as vital to the development of a fully-inclusive financial system; Lay the Foundations for Electronic Payments, Enable Rwanda to take advantage of modern technologies to reach Rwandans who are under-served by traditional payments infrastructure, and capacity building.

Visa is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable digital currency.

Current information has indicated that President Paul Kagame’s participation in the Aid effectiveness forum in S.Korea may also benefit Rwanda to partner with by the summit hosting country in Internet security.

This followed President Kagame’s visit to the Global electronic company SamSung and Korea Internet security Agency (KISA).

According to Paulkagame.com, Partick Nyirishema, Head of Rwanda Development Board Information Technology department, president’s visit to these technological giants was very instrumental for Rwanda an aspiring ICT hub in the region.

Nyirishema believes a country cannot invest in the use of the internet if security in ICT cannot be secured which would lead to loss of trust and credibility.

“KISA is indeed a strategic partner, and they are going to be helping us to build cyber security capability so that as we strive to fast track out technological capabilities in ICT, we do that with security in mind and putting the right measure in place,”Nyirishema said.

“We are going to be partnering with them to put the right measures in place and build our own capacity for cyber security.”He added.

He also said that bSamSung electronic giant will partner with Rwanda in skills development in ICT excellence.

“To have Samsung as a partner would be strategic because they have very high levels of expertise and competence. We are looking at partnering in the area of skills development, to help us build skills in certain areas we have discussed,”Nyirishema noted.

“We will continue to discuss the details on how they will help us as a country, to build skills in electronics as well as software application development. There are some tangible things that they are going to help us which will be very instrumental for ICT development in Rwanda.”

KISA is a government agency established in 2009 to focus on the national Korean information security, national internet development and international cooperation in the area of ICT and broadcasting.

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A Turkish firm, Hakan Mining and Electricity Generation Industry and Trade Inc. has signed a Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) with Ministry of Infranstracture to develop power generating plants in the wetlands of Nyanza and Gisagara Districts in the Southern Province.

According to Emma Francoise Isumbingabo the Minister of State in Charge of energy and Water, the project is expected to be completed in three years and US$230 million (Est. Rwf136,8bn) to develop the peat power generation plants.

Isumbingabo signed the MoU on behalf of the government.

This comes in a wake of unclear circumstances of Rukarara Hydro power project which is said to have involved slapdash deals and work in the execution of the project.

Currently an independent ad-hoc committee from the parliament has been set to investigate thoroughly well what failed the project.

After one month, the ad hoc committee is expected to come up with the expected independent report which will be followed by summoning relevant ministries or will ask for more time if it will have not completed its investigations.

A number of government institutions are now under scrutiny by Parliamentary Public Accountants Committee (PAC) for possible abuse of public funds following auditor general’s report 2009/10 which highlighted billions of funds spent with no supporting documents.

The report listed a number of public institutes that would have been caused a huge loss to the government in various aspects.

The Turkish firm represented by its Board of Director’s Chairman of Hakan, Ahmet Karasoy hailed Rwanda Development Board(RDB) that helped it eased and quickened its paper work.

“We shall also be looking at other energy areas where we can invest in,” Karasoy said.

Energy has become one of the world’s priorities of investment with latest technologies inventing various sources of energy from Sun, human and animal waste, and wind among others.

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