Igihe

Category: Business

  • EAC Diaspora in Texas Urged to invest in Rwanda

    The East African Diaspora community from North America has highlighted Rwanda as a main destination for investment with opportunities in hospitality and tourism, agribusiness amongst many others.

    The idea was noted during a 3 day annual Conference in Richardson, Texas; a city known as the “Telecom Corridor of the United States”.

    During the event, Ambassador of Rwanda to the United States, James Kimonyo discussed topics on the unique nature of the investment climate in Rwanda.

    According to the statement received by IGIHE, In the midst of large East African and U.S. companies, they were able to showcase the limitless business opportunities that Rwanda has to offer and encouraged the audience to think of Rwanda as their next business venture.

    The vice-chair of the East Africa Chamber of commerce Mr. Frank Kanobana; a Rwandan National said, “he strives to encourage Rwandan Diaspora around Texas to be involved in the initiative as it will be of benefit both to themselves and to Rwanda in turn”.

    Similarly, the embassy officials were also able to meet with the Mayor of Dallas as well as various executives of companies in a private setting, paving the platform to have a one-to-one conversation regarding Rwanda and its array of opportunities.

  • Roth & Shapley Win Nobel Economics Award

    Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley have won the 2012 Nobel Prize in economics.

    The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the US academics for their work on the “theory of stable allocations and practice of market design”.

    The work is concerned with the best possible way to allocate resources, such as in school admissions.

    Mr Roth is a professor at Harvard and Mr Shapley teaches at the University of California in Los Angeles.

    The committee said their work was a form of economic engineering, designing markets for situations where traditional market mechanisms based on price are not applicable or do not work well.

    “Even though these two researchers worked independently of one another, the combination of Shapley’s basic theory and Roth’s empirical investigations, experiments and practical design has generated a flourishing field of research and improved the performance of many markets,” the Academy said.

    Appearing at a news conference by phone from the US, Mr Roth said: “It sheds a very bright spotlight on the work we do, so that’s a good thing.

    “My colleagues and I work in an area that we’re calling market design, which is sort of a newish area of economics and I’m sure that when I go to class this morning my students will pay more attention.”

    In 1962, Mr Shapley and his colleague David Gale laid down a theory for how best to match demand and supply in markets with ethical and legal complications, such as admitting students to public schools in the US.

    If these particular markets were just left according to price, then you would get what economists refer to as market failure.

    This original work developed into the Gale-Shapley algorithm, which aims to ensure “stable matching” or the best possible outcome for both sides. “An allocation where no individuals perceive any gains from further trade is called stable,” the Academy explained.

    This is a key pillar in co-operative game theory, an area of mathematical economics that seeks to determine how rational individuals choose to co-operate.

    In the early 1980s, Alvin Roth set out to study the market for newly qualified doctors.

    This was a problem as a scarcity of medical students – such as that which existed in the US in the 1940s – forced hospitals to offer internships earlier and earlier, sometimes several years before graduation, meaning that a match was made before they could produce evidence of their skills and qualifications.

    A clearing system was set up to try to better match medical students and hospitals. In a paper from 1984, Mr Roth studied the algorithm used by this clearing house and discovered that it was very close to the Gale-Shapley algorithm, showing that it applied in real-life situations.

    The awards continue a strong US run of victories in the category of economic sciences.

    Forty-three prizes in economics have been awarded since 1969.

    BBC

  • Korea, Africa Hold Cooperation Conference

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    South Korea and the African Union are jointly holding the Korea Africa Economic Cooperation Conference in Seoul from Oct. 15-18, bringing 150 ministers and heads of 18 African nations and international organizations.

    The South Korean foreign ministry says, “Africa is the last growth engine of the world economy, which has unlimited growth potential,” Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan said in a letter of invitation. “This forum is expected to provide a good opportunity (for South Korea) to strengthen ties with Africa.”

    The conference remains the biggest event co-organized between Africa and Korea.

    The theme of this year’s conference focuses on “inclusive and green growth,” and the program will include the ministerial roundtable, bilateral meetings of ministers, economic cooperation seminars, African countries’ investor relation activities, and one-on-one business meetings.

    AfDB Senior Management and Executive Directors from Regional Member Countries will attend all the conference activities.

    The conference outcomes are expected to increase inclusive economic growth of African countries through the application of Korea’s development approaches.

    It will also knowledge on inclusive growth in sectors such as human resource development, infrastructure, energy, information technology, agriculture and green growth; and to enhance political and economic cooperation between Africa and Korea through increased trade, investment and dialogue.

    The partnership between the African Development Bank Group and the Republic of Korea began in 1980, when Korea joined the African Development Fund (ADF) in 1980 and the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 1982.

    In 2009, Korea provided a temporary AfDB capital increase of US $306.1 million and supported in 2010 the historic General Capital Increase (GCI) VI of 200 per cent and ADF-XII replenishment amounts of UA 53.86 million (KRW 94.77 billion) representing an increase of 66 per cent from its ADF-XI contribution.

    At the recently concluded ADF-12 Mid Term Review in Cape Verde, Korea played an active role in the discussions and highlighted the Bank’s focus on energy and natural resources, including the role of PPPs in infrastructure development.

  • East Africa: Countries Receive Funding for Electricity Interconnection

    The governments of Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have received funding totaling to $400million [Sh1trillion] from international agencies to implement a regional electricity interconnection project to aid member states share electricity efficiently, reliably and affordably.

    The project consists of the construction and upgrading of power transmission lines to interconnect the member countries.

    Speaking at a stakeholders meeting in Kampala on Oct. 11, Eva Paul from the KfW-German Financial Cooperation said they chose to fund the project in order to assist countries access cheap and affordable power, improve the living standards of the people in the region and foster cooperation and mutual understanding among the countries in the region.

    Other funders of the project include the African Development Bank, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

    Participants at the workshop however observed that challenges like completing the power purchase agreements, differences in languages, completing the tendering process were still hindering the progress of the project.

    “I have advised the countries to first work on these [challenges] so that by 2015 we are sharing power,” Simon D’ Ujanga, the minister of state for energy told journalists on the sidelines of the workshop.

    D’ Ujanga who opened the workshop said Uganda had completed the tendering process and was ready to start construction of the power line from Kawanda–Masaka-Mirama hills and then connect to Rwanda in 2013.

    “It is good to interconnect so that if one member records power cuts it is able to receive power from another,” the minister said.

    Members states have set 2015 as deadline for the full implementation of the project.

    The Independent

  • Rwangombwa Named Finance Minister of the Year-2012

    Emerging Markets has announced that John Rwangombwa, Rwandan Finance Minister, has won the 2012 Emerging Markets Finance Minister of the Year Award for Sub-Saharan Africa.

    “Rwanda has achieved strong economic growth combined with a significant reduction in poverty rates, despite an increasingly challenging external environment,” said Taimur Ahmad, editor in chief of Emerging Markets.

    “Between 2006 and 2011 poverty in Rwanda dropped by twelve (12%) percentage points from 57% to 45% and extreme poverty dropped from 35.8% to 24.1% in 2011. This reduction coupled with the high average growth rate of 8.2% over the same period demonstrate that growth in Rwanda has been pro-poor and development assistance has been effectively used to change lives especially in rural areas,” Minister Rwangombwa said.

    Rwangombwa aims for poverty to drop further by 15% in next five years as growth in key sectors of the economy is expected to accelerate.

    The annual Emerging Markets Central Bank Governor and Finance Minister of the Year Awards recognise the leading policymakers in each region. The awards are chosen by Emerging Markets’ editorial team, taking into account the views of leading regional experts.

    The winners are announced in our daily newspapers published at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings each year, with the award winning policy makers honoured at an annual awards ceremony during the IMF and World Bank annual meetings.

    Emerging Markets is a unique source of news, analysis and commentary on economic policy, international economics and global financial markets, with a particular focus on the emerging world. Emerging Markets has published daily newspapers at IMF, World Bank and regional development bank meetings for the past 25 years. Emerging Markets is part of Euromoney Institutional Investor plc, one of the largest and most respected providers of financial information worldwide.

  • Bralirwa Shares Hit New High Price

    The Rwanda Stock Exchange Friday indicated that market prices continued an upward trend as Bralirwa share hit a new high price of Rwf 436.

    The total turnover for the day was Rwf 22,956,000 from 136,100 BK shares and 12,100 Bralirwa shares traded in nine deals compared to yesterday’s trading session which recorded a turnover of Rwf 6,780,200 from 2,000 BK shares and 15,100 Bralirwa shares traded in four deals.

    BK shares traded and closed at Rwf 130, unchanged from yesterday’s closing price while BRALIRWA shares traded between Rwf 430 and Rwf 436 and closed at Rwf 436; registering an increase of Rwf 4 compared to yesterday’s closing price. KCB and NMG shares prices last transacted at Rwf 154 and Rwf 1,200 respectively.

    At the end of formal trading hours, there were outstanding bids of 1,097,900 BK shares at Rwf 130 and outstanding offers of 200,500 shares at Rwf 131 and Rwf 132. On Bralirwa counter, there were outstanding bids of 100,000 shares at Rwf 430 and no outstanding offers.

  • Prime Minister Calls for Help to Local Entrepreneurs

    Prime Minister Dr. Pierre Damien Habumuremyi has called for support to enterprising citizens that have established great projects.

    He made the call while touring the Mashroom processing Plant, BN Producers, at Jabana sector in Gasabo district.

    The BN Producers Factory has a capacity to process over 5 tons annually but currently they are unable because of space challenges.

    Mashrooms require to be dried at the factory before they can be processed into flour that can be packaged in many forms.

    However, BN Producers can only dry 30Kg of mashrooms in three days yet mashroom farmers deliver over 500Kg daily.

    Niyibaho Berthilde a woman that founded BN Producers says the challenge her factory faces is the inability to secure a loan.

    Niyibaho said she had applied for a Loan from Rwanda Development bank BRD, but was denied the loan because the bank argued she didnt have enough Collateral.

    She also says the Factory is faced with a challenge of paying a debt of Frw10Million owed to mashroom farmers that supply the factory.

    There are 4000 mashroom farmers employed by BN Producers.

    The factory is currently valued at Frw 870 Million. She says she needs a Loan of only Frw199Million to Boost her business.

  • Emirates Offers Phone Calls on Board A380

    Emirates has offered the world’s first in-flight mobile phone service onboard the A380 aircraft.

    In partnership with Emirates connectivity partner, OnAir, passengers aboard Emirates’ A380 aircraft will now be able to stay in touch via phone calls or through the mobile data link on their personal devices while in-flight.

    The service is in addition to the OnAir Wi-Fi service already available on Emirates A380 aircraft.

    The OnAir system allows passengers to use their own mobile phones to make and receive phone calls and text messages from Emirates A380 aircraft in-flight, just as they would on the ground, using EDGE/GPRS connections through their mobile service provider.

    Emirates first A380 equipped with the full suite of OnAir connectivity departed from Dubai international Airport to Munich International Airport on October 2 and the first recorded A380 in-flight call was placed to China while the aircraft cruised at 11,500 metres flying across the Gulf.

    “Our goal on every flight is to exceed our passengers’ expectations. We believe that exceeding expectations should not only apply to our Cabin Crew’s award-winning in-flight service and our Skytrax ‘World’s Best Airline In-flight Entertainment’ ice system, but also to our passenger’s desire to stay in touch while travelling,” said Khalid Bel Jaflah, Emirates Vice President for East Africa region.

    The airline has long set the industry standard for the latest in-flight innovations and connectivity.

  • Uganda Wants Share on S.Sudan Oil Pipeline

    Uganda has proposed to South Sudan to consider a joint venture in the construction of an oil pipeline through Uganda to Port Lamu in Kenya.

    South Sudan and Kenya in August signed an agreement for the construction of a 2,000km oil pipeline to the Kenyan port of Lamu.

    It is expected to deliver South Sudan’s crude oil to the rest of the world via the port. The construction is expected to begin next June and will cost $3b.

    Uganda argues that the pipeline would benefit the region because more countries would contribute towards its construction and also use it.

  • Smaller Business Exempted From Taxes

    Businesses earning Frw2 Million or lower in a year have been exempted from taxes. Rwanda Revenue Authority has said.

    Ben Kagarama, the Commissioner General of RRA, said at a news conference, “any business that makes Frw2 million or less will be exempted from taxation.”

    He added that other businesses making Frw2-4 million a year will pay a flat tax of Frw60,000 whereas those making Frw4-7 million will pay Frw120,000 a year.

    Also businesses that generate incomes between Frw7-10 million will pay a total of Frw210,000 while those earning Frw10-12 million will pay Frw300,000 annually.

    Rwanda Revenue Authority says the new changes come after talks with the traders and the Private Sector Federation.

    “We devised a new tax regime which is now imbedded in a new law to make it easy for the businesses to declare taxes,” says Kagarama.

    “previously, businesses making between Frw1.2M and Frw20M were were paying 4% of income..this was considered exorbitantly high. In the new adjustments business that earn Frw2M and lower, have been exempted from taxation.”