The visiting German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Dr Gerd Mueller, has said his country is committed to encouraging a strong link between German and Rwandan businesses, especially for joint ventures.

Mueller, who is in Rwanda for two days on official duties, said this today as he visited the Integrated Polytechnic Regional Centre (IPRC)-Kigali in Kicukiro District, where he spent time talking to students in different trades. He was accompanied by the Minister for Education, Dr Papias Malimba Musafiri.  

Minister Mueller said his country was interested in investing in what he called Rwanda’s dynamic generation. 

"This country has a very dynamic young generation and a good education system and we want to build on that and use it as the foundation of more cooperation in economic development, we want to bring together companies from both countries for joint investments. That’s our next goal,” he said.

Musafiri, on his part, said that both countries have been cooperating in the area of technical and vocational training with Germany, through German agencies GIZ and KFW, playing an instrumental role in the area of skills and capacity building.

"We have been sending many of our instructors in vocational and technical institutions for training in Germany on a long term basis but there are also short-term training programmes under which Rwandan students go to Germany and spend there about three months,” he said.

He said that one of the labs at IPRC-Kigali was set up and equipped with support from Germany, adding that the biggest support has been focusing on training the trainers who teach in different technical and vocational schools.

Mueller started his three-day visit on Wednesday. The focus of the visit, which ends on Friday, is on Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Good Governance/Decentralisation.

The German minister is due to hold bilateral talks with Finance and Economic Planning minister, Amb. Claver Gatete, after which they will address a joint news conference. Later, he is scheduled to visit Kigali Genocide Memorial in Gisozi, where an estimated 250,000  victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi are buried.

More than a million people were killed in the Genocide.

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