The environment has made some of them decide to settle their businesses in Rwanda with five foreign participants having already registered their companies with Rwanda Development Board (RDB).
Ronald Athanase Rutagengwa, exhibitor for Fubisun Company from Malaysia, told IGIHE he has participated in many countries’ exhibitions particularly all regional countries but Rwanda stands out in terms of exhibition organisation and security for the exhibitors and their goods.
He also rated Rwanda as the second most paying country in exhibitions in the region behind Kenya which has a larger market and a stronger currency.
“About the organisation of exhibitions, Rwanda is the best. Every document for exhibitors are issued on time, the security is tight with no single threat day or night, nobody abuses me, nobody tries to steal from us,” said the seller of home equipment such as blenders, juice mixers, sophisticated mops, dry cleaners, irons and massage equipment among others.
Rutagengwa said that, while a few people are shopping while many usually do window shopping in the first days of the fair, his expectations are too high to have sold much by the end of the expo as it has always happened in the previous exhibitions.
Robert Dossou, the Director General for Centre de Pharmacopée Bénin Tisane which is in Rwanda’s expo for the first time, said he has liked the environment and considers opening a local shop for his Bénin-based centre which is present in Cameroun, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Guinea Equatorial, Gabon, Chad, Congo Brazzaville and DRC.
“I have brought to Rwanda natural medicine that is made from herbs, trees leaves, roots, clay… by a group of 42 specialists who bring together their skills to produce effective medicine for either treatment or prevention of infections. We treat haemorrhoid, remedy for fat belly, we have liver remedy to decongest it from fats, purify blood, uric acid, skin buttons, we have remedy for swollen prostate and more,” said Dossou who started natural medicine practices in 1983.
Bénin is one of eight countries that are participating in this expo for the first time.
Dossou said people are visiting his stall in big numbers to buy the remedies, adding that he wants to let all Africans know that natural medicine is so important and break the misconception that likens natural medicine to fetishism, myth or sorcery.
Evas of the Yvonne Exclusive Design from Ghana said the expo environment is good but sales are still poor.
“We are designers of ladies and gents wear. Security is very good here, promptness, everything is alright but sales remain the challenge. People think our products are expensive but as a designer, I use the best fabrics to make my attires and accessories. This is my first time to come here but my mother participated in the previous three exhibitions here,” said Evas, adding that he considers reopening the shop in Kigali if the sales improve in the remaining days of Expo 2018.
He said they had a shop in Kigali City Tower but were forced to close it down because they had few customers while most perceived his products as expensive. Each wear’s price is between Rwf25,000 and Rwf90,000 but Evas says he is offering discount at the Expo.
“All depends on this expo, if it goes well, I will open a shop again in Kigali but if it doesn’t go well, I will be forced to go back home. We have shops in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia. We manufacture everything from scratch. We usually sell online and we are in expo to create customer relationship.”
Richard Kayibanda, the Registrar General at RDB, said they had registered five foreign companies participating in Expo 2018 as of last Thursday. By then, a total of 40 companies had registered from the RDB’s stand at the fair which is running at Gikondo Expo Ground in Kigali from July 26 to August 15. The fair attracted 500 companies from 23 countries. Among the exhibitors, 300 are Rwandans while 200 are foreigners.
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