The Rubavu Cross Border Market complex worth $2 million (approximately Rwf1.7 billion) which will be inaugurated early April is set to significantly empower small scale traders in Rubavu and other neighbouring districts.

According to the government, the TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) funded project, whose construction activities have taken about 15 months will officially open to the public at the beginning of April.

Speaking to Sunday Times yesterday, Robert Opirah, the director general for trade and investment at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, said that the market is almost complete.

"The activities are almost completed and we are now in the finishing touches. The work is at 98%, only remaining with a few fittings,” he revealed.

Opirah mentioned that if nothing hinders the progress being made, the market which is located in Rubavu district in the Western Province will open in the first or second week of April.

Rubavu currently has one of the busiest borders, and the district which borders Democratic Republic of Congo, is one of the fastest growing secondary cities, according to recent studies.

The official highlighted that Rubavu market would improve informal trade as well as empower small scale cross-border traders.

"There was no such facility before, but now it is there. We are creating an enabling environment for businesses to thrive. This is part of the strategy to promote cross border trade, and we have high hopes this [Rubavu] market will just do that,” he said.

The soon-to-be inaugurated Rubavu market have cold rooms for perishable produce, stores and warehouses, grocery stores, as well as a children’s centre for female traders with toddlers.

Once fully complete, the complex will also have mini-shops and offices for different businesses like forex bureaus and banks.

"Generally, we are looking at the facility in terms of the benefits that people will get. Imagine the losses that were being incurred simply because people didn’t have cold rooms for their products,” he said.

Cold rooms will minimise the losses that are regularly encountered by traders, helping those who are trading in perishable goods to preserve tomatoes, vegetables, meat and other products, Opirah explained.

The government official also noted that one of the most important segments is the centre for nursing mothers, pointing out that they have had challenges with operating their businesses with their children.

He said that the centre is reserved for those mothers to enable them work and their children can easily be well attended to than leaving them in the neighbourhoods like they used to do.

Overall, Opirah cited about 32 cooperatives which will benefit in informal trade in Rubavu district but that neighbouring districts like Burera and Nyamasheke could also benefit from the market.

The ministry of trade is currently designing a market management model, which Opirah says will help traders benefit equally from the facility.

He, however, noted that women who currently make up the biggest part of informal traders will be given a priority when it comes to availing spaces.

It is estimated that between 70-80 per cent of cross-border traders are women mainly in informal trade, with 90 per cent of the women traders relying on cross-border trade as their sole source of income.

The complex is part of the many cross-border markets that the government has planned at key border areas to improve trade and Rwanda’s exports to the region.

Statistics indicate that Rwanda’s informal cross-border exports with neighbouring countries stood at $ 25.2 million in the third quarter of 2017 from $ 24.2 million in 2017Q2, representing an overall increase of 3.7 per cent.

Formal traders could get a facility

The official also revealed that the government is also looking at not only empowering informal traders, but also formal traders, saying that there is a planned facility whose construction work would start soon.

"We have a bonded warehouse which will cater for bigger traders who normally carry bigger volumes of goods. We already have an investor who is now in the process of acquiring construction permits.

In the next few months, we hope we will have finished this process to start the construction,” he said, without disclosing when the work could begin.

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