Rwanda and China have expressed commitment to bolster cooperation towards human resource development as both countries continue to share experiences through skills transfer both in public and private sectors.

Officials from both countries reaffirmed their commitment to stronger cooperation on Wednesday evening during a reception to welcome Rwandan officials who completed training in different areas.

The trainings were conducted in China under the 2019 China Human Resource Development Training Programme.

Rao Hongwei, the Chinese Ambassador to Rwanda said he hopes that, through the programme, his country was contributing towards Rwanda’s ambitious development agenda.

"We have hope that those who went through the programme will use the acquired knowledge to streamline processes in their institutions, improve professionalism, enhance productivity, and accelerate sustainable development,” he said.

He said that the feedback they got from the institutions where the trainees were placed was impressive adding that the trainees lived to expectations.

This year, a total of 353 participants from the public and private sectors as well universities benefited from the programme in different key areas of development including agriculture, energy, culture and sports, governance, ICT, health, economy and trade, logistics and infrastructure.

They also included those from security services of police and military and according to the embassy, the trainers included by 50 per cent from the 249 trained under the same programme in 2018

Rao said China will continue to provide more training opportunities in the future whereby, in 2020, China pledged to train 550 more Rwandans under the programme.

"Let’s join hands to build and strengthen China-Rwanda partnerships to better serve Rwanda’s development strategies,” he said.

Zephanie Niyonkuru, the Deputy CEO at Rwanda Development Board said the programme will play a big role in pushing Rwanda to achieve her development targets and believes it will positively impact Rwandans’ wellbeing.

"We have set our targets for development and we can’t achieve them if we don’t invest in strengthening the human resource capacities of the different sectors. This programme is therefore essential towards this,” he said.

Rwandans have been benefiting from the China Human Resource Development Training Programme since 2000.