Due to the Covid-19 pandemic in Rwanda traders who import goods have expressed their struggle to import goods from different countries for many months now. Aphrodis Mpayimana, Vice-chairman of the association of importers in Rwanda said that the commodities they used to import and the cost of import has increased by 10% due to the Covid-19. “We used to go to China to import our commodities, but now we use other means where you place your order and people in china send them to you, but this comes with high cost from buying the commodities to the high cost of transporting them here,” he said “Most of the traders used to go to China, and once there you had the advantage of bargaining, but now you have to buy the commodities at the price they have fixed which is expensive,” he added. Mpayimana added that due to the pandemic the manufacturers stopped working because and now do not have enough commodities on the market, which makes them expensive at the local market for example shoes, cooking oil, garments, and electronics among others. Théoneste Ntagengerwa, spokesperson of the Private Sector Federation (PSF) said that they are aware of these problems and that they are working together with them to find solutions. “We are now trying to diversify the market of imports, now we encourage the traders to explore markets like regional markets, Turkey, India, and Egypt and this way they have a variety of markets and they can have options,” he said. “We have also encouraged our traders to build contractual business with their suppliers because this way they can get goods without having to go there, and have constant supply” he added. Ntagengerwa added that they encourage the importers to start using e-commerce because it is faster and easier and can be more reliable, but also save them the trouble of travelling a lot, especially in this pandemic. Efforts to reach the Ministry of Trade and Industry were futile as they were not available for comment.
