Despite global and regional economic challenges, Rwanda economy was resilient with a growth rate of 6.1% in 2016 from 6.9% in 2015.
This has been revealed today by the governor of the National Bank of Rwanda (BNR), John Rwangombwa during the presentation of Monetary Policy and Financial Stability statement held in Kigali Serena Hotel.
Service sector growth in 2016 was 7.7% up from 7.0% in 2015, contributing 49.7% of GDP, followed by industrial sector contributing 14.6% and agriculture with 29.6%.
BNR has attributed the growth of service sectors to the gain in hosting events including CHAN, WEF, AU Summit and Kwita Izina among others.
Transport has also been identified as a growing sub-sector with RwandaAir being in the lead, having opened six new routes.
Agricultural production contracted in the first three quarters of 2016 having grown by 3.7% down from 5.3% of 2015. Drought has been cited as a responsible factor for this slump.
Industrial sector grew by 5.0%, down from 6.7% in similar period of 2015. The decline is attributed to instability in the minerals market.
The gap between imports,exports is 5.9% in 2016 equaling USD1649.8 million from USD1752.5 in 2015. Authorized exports increased 7.1% while licensed imports decreased by 2.7% in 2016.
Rwanda economy is expected to rise by 6.0% in 2017.
In general World’s economy decreased by 3.1% in 2016 down from 3.2% of 2015 while Sub-Sahara Africa has seen it economy decreasing by 1.6% over the reduction of exportations, drought, Ebola in the West and political chaos in some countries.
Africa Sub-Sahara economy is expected to rise by 2.8% in 2017.
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