The Minister for Trade and Industry, Francois Kanimba, has recommended that every SME (Small and Medium Enterprises), by August next year, should be registered in its own cluster and create platforms for discussions.

He was speaking during a forum that brought together six SME clusters, namely leather products, Irish potatoes, minerals, precious stones, gems and jewelry, wood products and Banana products and cross-cutting sectors.

"We expect platforms to contribute to development goals considered under the three pillars of SMEs; level of contribution to domestic products, national exports, and numbers of jobs created,’’ Kanimba said.

There are twenty SMEs clusters that the ministry has identified as the most competitive across the country and has since come up with a number of interventions to support them.

Figures show that the SME sector, including formal and informal businesses, makes up 98 per cent of businesses in Rwanda and 41 per cent of all private sector employment.

Kanimba said the ministry will soon start an export fund that will provide SMEs with export projects with loans at low interest rates of between 7 and 8 per cent.

Issues awaiting platforms

Issues raised by SMEs clusters could be solved in platforms through interventions from ministries, other government institutions, private sector, NGOs, development partners and others

Anatole Majyambere, a representative of the potatoes cluster, said the platforms were needed along the value chain, especially regarding seed production.

"Seed production is not organised. Farmers start planting when seeds are not yet available. We want the establishment of a calendar of the seeds availability on time in necessary quantity, quality and appropriate type of seeds needed on the market,” he said.

He also expressed the need to implement an agreement signed with the ministry to stabilise potato prices, adding that by August, they must also enter partnership with potato processors to purchase their harvests.

Due to low level of entrepreneurship among farmers, more stakeholders will be engaged in training in access to finance and agronomic practices.

In leather products, it was also recommended that platforms were needed, starting from cattle keepers up to the processing stage. The action plan will cover best practices in animal husbandry, technical assistance and equipment, promoting more investment in tanneries, good collection of skins, and curbing illegal exports.

Cyprien Habyarimana from the Banana cluster, said banana crop diseases needed more research in order to be eradicated, while processors needed affordable modern processing equipment to reduce on post-harvest losses.

"We have another problem of packaging, where processors use branded bottles from other companies like Heinken. This should be followed by standardisation to categorise banana wines to attract better market,’’ he added.

Marie Louise Mukakarisa said the mining cluster needed tax waivers for imported mining equipment and facilitation on collateral requirement. The same request was put forward for imported timber production equipment.

The first forum of this kind was held in December last year and focused on honey, dairy products, ICT, wood and construction materials, fashion and tailoring clusters.

In the dairy cluster, for example, awareness campaigns were created for milk consumption while processors were also trained and equipped to introduce new dairy products on the market such as butter, cheese varieties and others.

This led to an agreement to waive tax on milk transportation vehicles or tricycles, especially for cooperatives.

A Honey Community Processing Centre is in the process of being established in Rubavu District and is expected to be operational by December, 2015, while research on diseases and colony collapse disorders has been undertaken as well as providing training on strategies to prevent and fight diseases among bee keepers. There is also a plan to establish National Honey Council.

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