There is growing recognition of the role trade can play in assisting sustainable economic growth in developing countries, as well as the importance of this in both eradicating poverty and empowering people in developing countries to help themselves.

Traidlinks, a not-for-profit company based in Ireland and funded by Irish Aid, wants to engage the Rwandan private sector to enhance their export readiness and ability to exploit regional and international markets. The company will specifically target agro-business firms in country in a bid to boost agricultural exports.

In an interview with The New Times in Kampala recently, Mr. Robert Moodie, the programme manager of Traidlinks revealed that his company wants to partner with the private sector to identify and provide routes to local, regional and international markets.

Moodie however noted that the project would begin by identifying and exploiting market opportunities within the regional markets. 

"Our pilot project will be between Uganda and Kenya, though we are thinking after Kenya if the project is successful, we are thinking of expanding our services to Rwanda,” he said. He however added that Traidlinks entry into the Rwandan market would be driven strictly by demand and funding.

Statistics from 2007 Rwanda Investment and Export Promotion Agency (Riepa) Export Report show that Rwanda’s exports have surged since 2000.

The report indicated that Rwanda needed to improve its export infrastructure and provide support to smaller indigenous investors, who lack skills, information, or capacity to compete in regional and international markets to grow both the volume and value of Rwandan exports.

In addition, the report underlined the fact that Rwandan companies and clusters need to be supported in order to reach their full potential.

It’s a fact that exporters face challenges of survival and growth in an open and global economy, where small firms face different constraints which hinder their big initiatives such as entering new export markets or moving up the value chain.

For a country’s exports to grow there is a need to help inexperienced and under-resourced exporters, so as to help them grow and stabilise into a secure and profitable position.

Rwanda’s apparent weakness in this sector might be due to insufficient information and lack of adequate export readiness and business match making opportunities that our exporters suffer from. However, that shouldn’t be the case.

It’s a fact that most countries in the East African region have economies that depend on agriculture; therefore, the rising global food prices presents a great opportunity for agricultural exporters, and the region to become net producers of agricultural produce.

How can Traidlinks help Rwandan exporters? Well, this year between, February and June, Traidlinks, will assist a group of ten Ugandan companies specifically dealing in food and beverages to find markets in Kenya.

The sales mission to Kenya will include: a tailor –made itinerary of appointments with interested buyers, shipment samples and an economy airfare.

In Uganda, Traidlinks is working closely with the Ugandan Export promotion board and the project has been coded "MarketLinked”.

Florence Kata, the Executive Director of Uganda Export Promotion Board (UEPB) believes that "companies that will successfully exploit the regional market will be able to penetrate into international markets”.

Sadly, the Kata said, "too many entrepreneurs who have jumped on to the export bandwagon tend to equate export marketing with domestic trading , and their attempts to export are often hampered by the lack of thorough understanding of the international nature of export business”.

According to Uganda’s National Export Strategy report (2007-2112) there is widespread scarcity of knowledge and skills in managing export development and management as a critical factor that is constraining Uganda’s export development
Traidlinks activities also include formal training of the business personnel to enhance their export selling skills and field experience activities such as business match making and direct marketing at the market place.

The company will also help in product development, product packaging and international market access.  Along with all this, Traidlinks has also developed a range of brand called "Heart of Africa” that comprises of African produce, including tea, coffee, macadamia nuts, dried banana, mango and pineapple that are sold in selected supermarkets in Ireland.

With capacity building, Rwandan business community will be empowered to exploit the growing East African Community market estimated at 120 million people.

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