Rwanda will turn into  a middle income economy if small and medium enterprises embrace innovative financing and excellent savings culture, experts have advised.

"Unless business entrepreneurs embrace the culture of saving while reinvesting in their businesses, they will find it difficult to attain economy sustainability which is critical for Rwanda to achieve a middle income status,” Victor Schemedding, the chief executive officer of cloud work, a Netherland based business firm said during the East Africa growing SMEs forum in Kigali last week.

Schemedding added that economic sustainability and self reliance, is not about governments but rather SMEs trying to become more innovative, saving and reinvesting.

Thierry Sanders, founder and director of BiD Network that focuses on high growth small and medium enterprises echoed the same message. He noted that small businesses must always align themselves with the culture of saving but most important, to always find financiers to support them.

Sanders added that it’s imperative that different financiers and beneficiary companies share their experiences on finding financial solutions fitting the investment needs of the companies, this way the economy will be fast tracked towards prosperity. 

At the same forum, Valentine Rugwabiza, the CEO Rwanda Development Board said that SMEs present the potential to create employment, spar economic growth and alleviate poverty.

"Our SMEs contribute almost 98% of our businesses and this makes them a major contributor to the national production,” Rugwabiza said.

She added that government is ready to play its role in enhancing the comparative advantages for SMEs to make them more competitive.

"This will make it easy for them to access finances and markets for their products,” she added.

According to the 2008 study by the Private Sector Federation, there are over 72,000 SMEs operating in Rwanda, but only 25,000 are registered.