Business round-up

A-Link Technologies goes for dual SIM card phones The President of A-Link Technologies, a Chinese firm said that the manufacturing plant in Kigali will soon start assembling dual SIM card phones. This is aimed at increasing its product line. The company has been manufacturing phones with a single SIM card. Edward Yin explained that the change to dual SIM card is to cushion competition emerging from the local telecom operators. “Telecom operators avail cheap imported handsets on the market since their intentions are to increase the sale of SIM cards and airtime. Yet we mind about the number of handsets sold,” he added. MTN Rwanda introduced the ZTE (aka karasharamye) which costs Rwf14,000 whereas its competitor, Rwandatel launched GSM enabled phone manufactured by Huawei in China at Rwf11,000. The cheapest A-Link Technology phone, the ‘ALIRA A300’ costs Rwf19,900. Some of the other ALIRA branded phones are programmed with Kinyarwanda software to the advantage of Rwandans who only use the native language. ADF grants Rwf13.4b for Butare-Kitabi-Ntendezi Road Project The African Development Fund (ADF) approved $23.5m equivalent of Rfw 13.4 billion to support the rehabilitation and maintenance of Butare-Kitabi-Ntendezi Road. The 115-km road network links Kigali, to the western and southern parts of the country, and serves as the main access road to the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), notably the Bukavu Region, for the supply of food and manufactured products. The objective of the project is to open up the rural areas to increase sub-regional trade. The grant agreement was approved through African Development Bank (AfDB) Group and by the institution’s Executive Board on Wednesday in Tunis, Tunisia. The project will cost about $70m and the ADF grant. This represents 34.23 percent of the overall cost. It will be co-financed by Rwanda’s Road Maintenance Fund (FER), the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (ABEDA), the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), the OPEC Fund for International Development as well as the Rwandan government. RRA to adopt regional external tariffs for July The Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) is close to the adoption of the regional Common External Tariff (CET). This is part of the efforts to synchronise the country’s tax administration policies with those of the East African Community (EAC) under the Customs Union Protocol. CET is the application of the same customs duties, import quotas, preferences or other non-tariff barriers to trade on all products entering the bloc. It follows Rwanda’s joining of the economic bloc in 2007, where member states are required to align their tax policies with the Customs Union. Several steps have been undertaken for the implementation of EAC external tariff by 1st July such as drafting of a list of sensitive products and raw materials, which has undergone consultations with different stakeholders such as the private sector and the Ministry of Trade and Industry. It is currently in the Ministry of Finance for alignment with the tax policy. Others steps towards implementation include the training of RRA staff on the EAC customs management and sensitisation of the public countrywide. Government believes that the CET will protect regional products from competition with emerging from products the EAC regional bloc. However, it is expected that the application of the EAC CET which is a three band structure will cause revenue losses to Rwanda with a four band tariff structure. Musoni expects G20 to honour aid pledges The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning has called for the Group of 20 industrialised and developing nations (G20) to honour their aid commitments, when they meet in London. The G20 summit that is meeting in London discussed necessary steps of ending the global economic crisis. James Musoni said on Monday that the G20 solutions must also serve to address Africa’s problems, particularly Rwanda whose mining sector has been affected by the global economic downturn. As a result of the economic recession, Musoni said that Rwanda’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth has been revised to 5.7 percent from the Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) projection of 7.2 percent in 2009. This is 5.4 percent less GDP growth Rwanda attained last year.He suggested that Africa’s commercial banks should be facilitated by donors in order to help them extend lending to development projects. The G-20 is made up of 19 world biggest economies including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia and Italy. Ends