Photo: L-R Tony NsanganiraActing COORDB (L) Clare Akamanzi Acting CEORDB (C) Vivian Kayitesi Head of Investment Promotion and Implementation
In the context of global economic difficulty, Rwanda has managed to create its own opportunities in 2012 and attracted a significant amount of new investments.
The Rwanda Development Board has released year-ending results indicating that as of December 19th, 2012, Rwanda has registered US$1.10 billion.
During a press conference in which these statistics were revealed, the Rwanda Development Board Acting Chief Executive Officer, Clare Akamanzi stated that Investments registered in 2012 have so far reached a record $1.1 billion compared to this year’s annual target of $835m with Tourism, Energy and construction & Real Estate sectors attracting the largest level of investments.
“We expect 2012 to be the highest value of projects registered in a single year,’’ Akamanzi noted .
“These record investments have also created a total of over 20,578 jobs (11,522 more jobs than 2011) with the Mining, ICT and Services sectors contributing to the largest amount of job creation’’ added Akamanzi.
These results demonstrate that Rwanda’s ease of Doing Business is having a real impact. In 2012, RDB has pursued its journey toward rapid economic transformation by further implementing changes that brought about positive results.
Of great importance also to RDB is to ensure that the policies and reforms designed; provide the private sector with the best environment to grow, while catering for government’s interest.
Through the Rwanda Private Public Dialogue mechanism, efficient forums for discussion, resolving issues and policy advocacy representing the voice of all stakeholders concerned are provided.
As per EDPRS 2 strategy being developed, it is clear that all Ministries will be actively involved in promoting private sector investments in their respective area of interest, and therefore RDB will be working in even closer collaboration with all of them going forward.
RDB will also strengthen its core marketing function to increase investment proactive targeting in strategic sectors of interest (e.g. financial services, logistics, BPO and light weight manufacturing).
Looking ahead to 2013, RDB is aiming higher to a target of $1.3 billion.
Local and Foreign Investments: 2012 Local investments registered accounted for 49% of value, but 61% of number of projects, where foreign investments and JV also account for 51% of value, but only 39$% of number of projects.
Exports: By the end of October 2012, export receipts from different sectors stood at US$ 385 million compared to US $315 million from January to October in 2011 representing a 22% increase.
Tourism: Tourism is estimated to have generated US$210.5 million from January to September, 2012 compared to US$184.4 million generated in 2011 during the same period. This corresponds to an increase of 14%.
Small and Medium Enterprise Development: RDB has established over 30 Business Development Centers to offer Business Development services that improve performance of enterprises, their access to markets and ability to compete.
These offer services to SMEs such as training, coaching, consultancies, marketing, information, technology development and transfer and business linkages
Customer Care: A series of strategic activities were set in motion on customer care to ensure that the country addresses the challenges facing it as a result of poor customer care approaches.
A campaign, entitled Na Yombi, was initiated and over 2,029,000 adult Rwandans have been exposed to best practices on service delivery through communication activities, several trainings of trainers in private sector companies.
Investment registered: is the commitment of an investor who acquired an investment certificate at RDB in 2012.
It is therefore the value committed to be invested as well as the number of jobs to be created, over the period of the submitted business plan, which can be up to 5 years.
Out of a total of 181 projects registered in 2012, the top 10 investors account for 63% of total investments value of $1,100m.
Company Registration has also reached a record level in 2012 with 9031 companies registered as of December 19th, an increase of 42% from 2011.
This represents about 35 companies registered each working day, compared to 24 in 2011, and only 2 companies per day 10 years ago.
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