Minister Ingabire confirmed the development yesterday as she appeared before the Parliamentary Committee on Education, Technology, Culture, and Youth.
“There is an investor planning to set a smartphone factory in Rwanda which will ease and boost the use of internet in the country,” Minister Ingabire said.
The smartphone factory is part of an investment of Huaijian Group, a Chinese company that signed the partnership deal with Rwanda Development Board in September 2017 to open an industry making shoe, handbags, computers, cell phones, and different other commodities.
The factory set to invest $1 billion in 10 years is projected to create jobs for 20,000 Rwandans.
Minister Ingabire said some Rwandans don’t use smartphones due to their high prices but with the opening of the factory in Rwanda, the population will be able to buy smartphones and pay for them in installments.
“There are smartphones that cost Rwf40,000 but not every citizen can afford to buy it. If we set the way to pay that smartphone in installments of over 24 months, for instance, it can make it easier for the less privileged to buy and own their own smartphones,” Minister Ingabire said.
“The Rwandan Government plans to work with telecommunication companies to improve the internet connection accessibility and reduce prices of the internet which are also still high and impede people from using internet which is a basic need nowadays,” she added.
According to statistics released by Rwanda Utility and Regulation Authority (RURA) in October last year, the internet penetration rate in Rwanda was 46.4% while the number of people using the internet in Rwanda had increased from 4,375,016 in June 2017 t0 5,475,448 in June 2019.
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