KIGALI - The Rwanda Investment Group (RIG) posted a net profit of Rwf 1.1 billion during the 2008 financial year, the company said Friday in a press statement.

The consortium of local investors also said its pre-tax profits stood at Rwf 1.7 billion. It said 50 percent of net profits will be declared as dividends to its shareholders.

RIG is owned by 43 local investors. The company’s Board of Governors said they were impressed with all the projects that the company had invested in during 2008 financial year.

Last year the company committed Rwf500 billion worth of investment. Most of the investment was in extraction of methane gas from Lake Kivu silk and cement production, maintenance of Kigali industrial park and peat extraction.

Charles Mporanyi, the company’s board chairman said investment in the cement factory would reduce the cement retail price which is currently going at Rwf 10,200 a sack.

RIG committed $50 million in expansion and rehabilitation of the cement plant.

The 600,000 tonne capacity factory should be ready in June 2010.  

Mporanyi said the methane gas pilot project will this year generate 3.6 megawatts.

"The project (Methane gas) is ongoing and RIG is planning to extract and distribute the gas in the near future,” he said, adding, "The industrial park project is also on course.”

RIG is also targeting a pharmaceutical industry in the Southern Province and has stakes in the Kigali Convention Centre under construction.

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