A cabinet minister in the Republic of Congo has invited Rwandan businesses to the central African country to explore trade and investment opportunities, saying its time African countries traded more with each other.

Euloge Landry Kolelas, the Minister for External Trade and Consumption, was addressing a delegation of Rwandan businesses last week who were on a trade mission to the country as part of broader efforts to widen Rwanda’s exports base.

Previously, the Rwandan business leaders, under the auspices of the Private Sector Federation (PSF), have also undertaken such trade missions in DR Congo, China, Turkey, among others, with view to identifying opportunities for business in those countries.

It is expected that these missions will soon start to bear fruit, with recent reports indicating that trade between Rwanda and DR Congo was on an upward trend.Such bilateral arrangements in addition to the improving business environment across the East African Community (EAC) member states, and a tripartite agreement between the EAC, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) – which seeks to promote free trade across these three blocs – could soon lead to a significant improvement in intra-Africa trade.

Local businesses should seek to make the most of these developments and, as the Congolese minister advised, leverage the existing cordial relations between countries and tap into the available opportunities.

For Rwanda, the renewed impetus among the local businesses to seek markets for locally made products could not have come at a better time, with RwandAir actively spreading its wings to new African destinations, along with plans to open routes to Europe, Asia and Americas in the pipeline.

This presents immense opportunities and prospects to local communities.

Increased exports would also boost the ‘Made-In-Rwanda’ initiative, which seeks to reduce or even eliminate the country’s trade deficit, thus impacting national growth agenda.

Rwandan businesses must reposition themselves and think outside the box if they are seize the opportunities that come with these new markets.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw