The 11th Rwanda International Trade Fair ended last Monday on a positively with 93 international and 217 local exhibitors sealing business deals.

Despite exhibitors sealing deals, statistics from PSF indicate that there was a drop in the numbers, from 323 last year to 310 this year.

The PSF expo secretariat attributed the general drop in exhibitors partly to leaving out most small local companies.

PSF also preferred big exhibitors this year to small exhibitors.
Exhibitors attributed the drop to the high costs of hiring stands. Previously, the stand was coasting about $700 but this year, the price climbed to $1,350 (about Frw738,000).

According to PSF, the fees were the cheapest in the region yet the total expenditure for improving on the infrastructure at Gikondo Expo Grounds has to be recovered within four years.

Meanwhile, local companies scooped couple of awards in customer care, sales, branding and advertising among others during the exhibition of their products and services.

MTN Rwandacell beat all exhibitors winning the best overall exhibitor for the 7th time, while Egypt and Kenya led the foreign exhibitors table.

5m ATM customers targeted by next year

Simtel, Rwanda’s inter-bank electronic payment service provider hopes to have five million Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) customers by next year, said Rogers Munyampenda, Simtel’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

The plan is expected to be realised when Rwandans start using the new electronic national identity cards to access banking services.

The cards will be used at the point of sale where nationals, access services thus reducing the digital divide as simple information technology will be introduced in rural areas.

Statistics from Simtel show, that the number of clients using the ATM cards has increased from 21,099 people in September last year to 33,722 in August this year.

Simtel is also planning to convince more business outlets to accept visa cards at their point of sale hopefully to increase and facilitate electronic payments among financial institutions, merchants, consumers, businesses and government entities.

BCR’s customers rush for SMS, Internet banking

A total of 1548 Commercial Bank of Rwanda (BCR) customers have registered for the two new banking facilitates (Short Message Service-SMS and Internet).

According to BCR’s Marketing and Communication Manager, Vivian Kayitesi, 1,246 registered for online banking, while the rest [302] chose SMS banking.

SMS banking is where clients can access their accounts information by the use of instant information through the use of their mobile phones while Internet banking allows the clients to consult their bank accounts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without queuing up in the banking halls.

Ends