KIGALI - Rwanda’s mining sector output grew by 34% in 2010 compared to the previous year due to increased export volumes of minerals, the Minister of Forestry and Mineral Resources, Christophe Bazivamo has said.

By the end of 2010, mineral export revenues had generated $96.4m making the mining sector the top revenue earner.
"Our projection for 2011 is US$100m or more,” said Bazivamo.

He added that one of the reasons the country doesn’t expect a fall in revenues is because there is about 21 new mineral-rich sites that were recently discovered by researchers.

"The advantage of Rwanda is that there many types of minerals in all parts of the country and our aim is make sure that they are all exploited and we are looking at exporting quality, which is why we started tagging and sealing our minerals,” said Bazivamo.

"For the government to register this success story, we had to invest over $ 200m in mineral research”.

As a long term-measure, the country also expects to attract more investments in mineral processing.

Rwanda’s main mineral exports are ores processed to extract tin, gold, coltan, wolfram, and tungsten among others.

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