Rwanda is keen on attracting $100 million worth of investments from Chinese firms every year, up from $59.1 million registered in 2018, Rwanda Development Board has said. The target was revealed during the ‘China brand show’ that was officially launched on Monday in Kigali. “We have urged these companies from China to bring their investments to Rwanda since the Government has a plan and strategies to boost the economy based on manufacturing,” Philip Lucky, the Head of Investment at RDB, said. He said that Rwandan private sector is also being mobilised to learn from the technology exhibited in the China brand show for collaboration in both using and locally producing the technology. He noted that agricultural technologies are important to Rwanda’s economic growth. “China has different technologies in manufacturing but also their economy is based on agriculture and livestock. If you follow global economic trends, China is actually one of the biggest exporters of agricultural products. As our agriculture is subsistence in nature, we want to transition agriculture from being subsistence to mechanised and be able to increase productivity on a large scale,” he said. Lucky said that China investments keep increasing in Rwanda in terms of manufacturing, businesses, construction and others. “Investments from China were worth $59 million in 2018. We want that those investments increase to at least $100 million investments. If you look at the list of investments coming to Rwanda, China investments are among the top five. This assures that their investments will keep increasing as well as other business,” he said. He noted that through the launched eWTP (electronic world trade platform), an initiative by government of Rwanda in partnership with Alibaba, SMES will be promoted. “This initiative aims at looking at how to support local SMEs that seek to trade in China. Already, Rwandan SMEs are selling coffee and tea in China. Under the Visit Rwanda campaign, we are also looking at how we can attract more tourists from China. We have also tour packages on this platform so that Chinese who wish to visit Rwanda can easily access information on this platform,” he said. Chongqing Lifan Industry Group is one of the exhibitors at the show. The company is one of the biggest private-own enterprises in China. It specialised in motorcycle and motor engine manufacture and sales, as well as automobile manufacture, football industry, Financial Security and Media. Adam Li, the company’s Project manager, said that they are looking for their agents in Rwanda. “We just brought samples including the motorcycles, agricultural technologies and others. We are also in real estate, transport and insurance. We have a commercial bank, we produce generators,” “We brought samples to Kigali to find who would be the right person to be our agent here. This is my purpose. For instance, we have agents in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Congo, Cameroon and others,” he added. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
