Rwandan firm nominated for entrepreneurial award

Gahaya Links, a local crafts company known for the Rwanda peace basket, is the only local firm nominated for this year’s ‘Legatum Pioneer of Prosperity Africa Award’ slated for November, 19, in Kigali. This was revealed by On The Frontier (OTF) Group officials, a competitive consulting firm that is a co-organiser of the awards together with Legatum, a privately owned international investment group and S.E.VEN a Social Equity Venture Fund. Gahaya has to be among six winners if it is to benefit from the $350,000 (Rwf192.2m) growth and strategic reinvestment fund that will be rewarded to the winning companies. Alan McCormick Managing Director of Legatum said that the ten companies came after an exhaustive review process that identified some of the most talented entrepreneurs in Africa. The award identifies and recognises the very best business leaders in Africa, which serve as role models to talented young people across the continent. It is said to be the only one of this kind. The finalists were selected from over 1,400 small and medium-sized enterprise covering diverse industrial sectors such as agriculture, ICT service and financial service. This year’s awarding programme was built on the success of the inaugural Legatum awards in 2007 which attracted over 450 firms from five countries in East Africa. High speed Internet for rural areas New Artel which recently benefited from the government’s Frw1.5b universal access fund to provide telecommunication services in rural areas that MTN Rwanda and Rwandatel do not cover, targets 120Mbps by December 2008 and 150Mbps by end of January 2009. Last year, the company was operating 130 sites in rural areas, each served with adequate bandwidth depending to the sites’ needs and had connected most government agencies in rural areas to their servers. Françis Karemera, the Chief Executive Officer of New Artel said that the move will connect rural institutions to their main branches and enhance customer satisfaction. The National backbone optic cable that had been laid to fill the gaps in backbone networks, targeting to improve rural connectivity has increased Artel’s capacity. Local insurers safe amid global financial crisis Insurers in Rwanda have said, they have not yet felt the pinch of the spiraling global financial crisis, but warned that insurance premium could increase if the financial turmoil persisted. The global financial crisis which started in the United States with American stock markets in July 2007 has already had a spill-over effect on European banks, insurance companies and other major economies. Corneille Karekezi, the president of the Association of Insurance Companies in Rwanda (ASSAR), said that all local insurance companies are transferring part of their risk portfolios to regional re-insurers like ZEP-RE and AFRICARE. He said that Rwanda insurance companies have been advised not to invest in Europe, USA and Asia until the turmoil subsides. However re-insuring with regional re-insurers is not guarantee to avert the impact of the global financial crisis on insurance companies in the country. This comes at a time insurance penetration in the country is very low at less than two percent. The average insurance premium per capita in Rwanda is $2.1 compared to $5 in Sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa. Coffee exporters target Rwf41.4b next year Rwanda coffee exporters are targeting $75m (Rwf41.4 b) revenue from coffee exports next year. The figure represents an increase of 39 percent from the $46 million target of (Rwf27b) expected this year. It is also $9m (Rwf4.97b) higher than government’s target of $66 (Rwf36.5b). Exporters are optimistic about the country’s record coffee export receipt, partly because of extensive marketing and participation in coffee exhibitions alongside the application of intensive methods of farming. Emmanuel Harelimana, the Deputy Director General Caferwa said the figures that the revenue figures that correspond with 2009 will be realised from a coffee production turnover of 31,000 tonnes. Ends