The Private Sector Federation (PSF) has been lauded for its role in promoting young entrepreneurs and advocating for a conducive environment to do business in Rwanda.

Visiting business and management students from Antwerp Management School (AMS) in Belgium said the PSF has done a commendable job in supporting youth in business and lobbying for supportive laws for businesses and investors.

The students and the school’s Rwandan alumni were meeting the PSF chief executive officer, Stephen Ruzibiza, on Friday in Kigali. During the event, Ruzibiza explained the operations of the federation and how it has facilitated doing business in the country.

Gilles De Clerck, who led the 10-man AMS delegation, said the group would also interact with local young entrepreneurs to gain more knowledge and understand better key issues in doing business across the global.

"Rwandan economic growth is among the leading in the world and there is no doubt this has been spearheaded by good policies formulated by private sector and government. That’s why it was imperative for us to come and learn from the experience,” he said during the interview after the meeting.

He added: "After the interaction with PSF chief executive, we have realised that the federation has done tremendous work in promoting business and investment in the country.”

Ruzibiza told the students that the federation’s advocacy role had played a pivotal role in creating a favourable environment for doing business in the country. He said that, through the regular public-private dialogue initiative, a lot of trade barriers had been removed to facilitate investors to operate in a conducive atmosphere.

"Through our advocacy, the doing business environment in Rwanda has tremendously changed, which has helped to attract more foreign direct investment into the country,” Ruzibiza said while addressing the students at PSF head offices in Kigali.

Meanwhile, the students met with local young entrepreneurs and shared experience and information on the general start-ups business in Rwanda.

AMS Fund

The Antwerp Management School established a special fund, the Antwerp Management School Fund for Sustainable and Innovative Entrepreneurship (AMS Fund), to support its corporate social responsibility initiatives as a business school. The AMS Fund has benefited young entrepreneurs in developing countries, including Rwandans. It is aimed at developing innovative and sustainable ways to stimulate entrepreneurship among young people in less developed countries, as well as to provide them further education and skills development,