About 20 exhibitors from different housing and real estate companies are exhibiting their products at the fifth annual Property and Home Show that opened at Kigali Conference and Exhibition Village’s Kigali Hall (Camp Kigali) on Wednesday March 20.

Themed ‘The Key To Your Home’, the four-day exhibition is organized by Property & Home Show in partnership with Rwanda Housing Authority and intends to bring together key players in the local housing and real estate sector including government agencies, developers, architects, real estate agents and investors, construction, finance and insurance companies, designers and home builders and the public to learn about property and how to invest in the sector.

While officially opening the exhibition on Wednesday, Eric Serubibi, the Director General of Rwanda Housing Authority (RHA), said the exhibition is key to proving the quality and competence local construction materials and interior items are made with while calling for more investment in the housing sector.

Rwanda Housing Authority Director General, Eric Serubibi (C), touring at the 5th Property and Home Show after officiating the expo on Wednesday. Courtesy.

"The expo can help much in mobilization of investors, developers, and producers of local construction materials to play a big role in the development of the local housing sector. Participation in this show will increase more investment opportunities in the housing sector and local construction material promotion. We have seen here [at the expo] good, locally made materials. This proves that we do not need to go and import such materials like interior designs from outside the country while we can find them in the local market,” Serubibi said.

Serubibi appealed to the private sector and other stakeholders to scale up their support to ensure efficiency and advance the capacity in development of the sector. "We always expect the private sector to get more involved in this sector because it is a sector of opportunities. The products exhibited at the expo are showing us, clients, that we do not need to go outside, and that we have something we need locally, at an affordable cost.Our target is that in the near future we have good and competent construction materials made in Rwanda at our disposal,” he added.

Jati Evora Biague said the expo was organized to give a platform to exhibitors from the real estate sector to showcase products that people tend to buy from abroad because they don’t know they are available in the local market."People, therefore, need to come to the expo and buy locally made products at an affordable price and support the local market and their own local producers. I would like to invite them to come to the expo, visit us, see how project developers are doing an amazing job in offering affordable housing in Kigali and Rwanda, in general. They may also go to the banks, talk to them and see how they can advise people that they can have their own homes,” she added.The expo will end on Saturday March 23.

Amanda Wu, the Sales Manager of Phoenix Plaza, a real estate company investing in real estate project development in Kanombe said the expo is an opportunity to show the expo goers the best of their products at affordable prices."We would like to show people in Rwanda that we have a beautiful building environment. There is high speed development in Kigali and you can see why we are interested in investing in Kigali and creating many opportunities for Rwandans. At this expo, we want to show them how we can build a high-end living housing unit at an affordable price,” she said.