Rwanda will seek a second credit rating this year as it prepares to sell its first global bond, Finance Minister John Rwangombwa<\/span> said.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n The government is in talks with Standard & Poors<\/span> on a sovereign rating expected in 2011 and \u201cwe expect to be really ready for the market in the next two to three years,\u201d Rwangombwa<\/span> said in an interview in Cape Town yesterday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have investment banks that are willing to go to the market right now,\u201d Rwangombwa<\/span> said in the interview, conducted while he was attending the World Economic Forum on Africa. \u201cBut we are putting our house in order to ensure that we are getting the right cost of our financing. There is appetite outside there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Rwanda joins African countries such as Nigeria and Zambia that are turning to global capital markets to fund infrastructure projects. Rwanda has a sovereign credit rating of B by Fitch Ratings, lower than Zambia\u2019s B+ and in the same category as Uganda, Mozambique and Seychelles.<\/p>\n The World Bank has praised economic progress in Rwanda, where it takes just three days to register a company, compared with an average of 45 days in sub-Saharan Africa and 13.8 days in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, according to the lender.<\/p>\n Renaissance Capital said in a report on April 12 that Rwanda is succeeding in reaching its goal of becoming a \u201cSingapore of Africa\u201d due to political stability, low corruption and a shift to a service economy.<\/p>\n Investor demand in the recent sale of the state\u2019s 25 percent stake in beverages manufacturer Bralirwa<\/span>, a unit of Heineken NV, indicates appetite for Rwandan assets, Rwangombwa<\/span> said. The government plans to hold an initial public offering for Bank of Kigali this year and \u201calready the indications are that appetite is very high in the market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The finance minister presented a budget of Rwf<\/span> 1.12 trillion francs ($1.86 billion) to parliament on May 2 for the fiscal year ending June 2012, with revenue expected to jump 14 percent to Rwf<\/span> 538 million francs. The budget deficit is forecast to narrow to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product next year from 4.1 percent in the year through June. International donors fund about 41 percent of state spending, Rwangombwa<\/span> said.<\/p>\n Stronger tax revenue is mainly due to increased spending as the economy expands, the minister said.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople have more money and there\u2019ll be more revenues,\u201d Rwangombwa<\/span> said. \u201cAlso there\u2019s an increase in the efficiency of revenue collection.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rwanda will seek a second credit rating this year as it prepares to sell its first global bond, Finance Minister John Rwangombwa said. The government is in talks with Standard & Poors on a sovereign rating expected in 2011 and \u201cwe expect to be really ready for the market in the next two to three years,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[277],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe-com-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":277,"name":"IGIHE.com Reporter","slug":"igihe-com-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":277,"name":"IGIHE.com Reporter","slug":"igihe-com-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Rwangombwa<\/span><\/span> has lowered his target for economic growth this year to 7 percent from 8 percent as rising food and energy costs push up inflation and boost import costs. The government may consider lowering fuel taxes to ease costs if its outlook for inflation worsens, he said. Inflation reached 4.1 percent in March from 2.3 percent in the previous month, the statistics office said on April 15.<\/span><\/h2>\n