FEATURED: Building transport network to unlock wealth, enhance mobility for business and leisure

The transport system in Rwanda centres primarily on the road network. Paved roads lie between the capital, Kigali, and most other major cities and towns in the country. Rwanda is also linked by road with other countries in the African Great Lakes, via which the majority of the country’s imports and exports are made. A large amount of investment in the transport infrastructure has been made by the government since the liberation in1994 genocide against the Tutsi, with the support of such development partners such as the European Union, AfDB, China, Japan and others. During the period of 2010-2017, the Ministry of Infrastructure (MININFRA) has implemented a number of transport infrastructure projects through Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA). This has served to improve domestic interconnectivity and external links to the central and northern corridors. MININFRA activities in the transport sector focused on key areas of national roads namely: upgrading, rehabilitation and maintenance (both paved and unpaved roads), inland water transport infrastructure development and safety. In regard to improving Urbanization of cities and Urban Transport, 54 Km of roads aimed to reduce congestion and hence improve traffic flow in CoK are under construction and 100 Km of unpaved roads are being upgraded to paved road in order to improve accessibility and connectivity in the City of Kigali. Air transport Since the first jet airliner flew in 1949, use of commercial aviation has grown more than seventy-fold. This growth has been un-matched by any other major form of transport and is essential to economic progress. The trend continues today, and Rwanda more than ever is dis-covering the benefits of air travel. Rwandans are discovering that the industry plays a decisive role in the work and leisure of mil-lions of people, and promotes an improved quality of life. By facilitating tourism, air transport is helping generate economic growth and alleviate poverty in our country – by providing employment opportunities, increasing revenues from taxes, and fostering the conservation of protected areas. In 2007, Rwandair was operating two flights, one on Tuesday and the other on Saturday but today the flag carrier airline of Rwanda operates domestic and international services to East Af-rica, Central Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa, Europe, Middle East and Asia the from its main base at Kigali International Airport in Kigali. Today, with the addition of flights to Cape Town in South Africa, RwandAir now serves 26 destinations. With a fleet of 12 aircraft including two wide-body Airbus A330 acquired last year, the airline fly to destinations across East, Central, West and Southern Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia. Bugesera Airport The construction Bugesera In-ternational Airport has reached the 10 per cent milestone, five months since work on it started in August 2017. Portuguese civil contractor Mota Engil who won the bid is seeking to meet a De-cember 2019 deadline for the first phase and then the next phase six months later. The airport is expected to handle 1.7 million passen-gers per annum. Mota Engil is building the airport through a public–private partnership. Under the agreement, Mota Engil will operate the airport for 25 years, with an option to extend its tenure by another 15 years to recoup its invest-ment costs. Engineering es-timates put the cost of the project at $820 million.

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FEATURED: Building transport network to unlock wealth, enhance mobility for business and leisure