Business round-up

IMF approves technical support to Rwanda The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a two-month extension for its staff to review Rwanda’s three-year Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). “This is a technical extension that will allow the IMF team to complete the review of PRGF before the program ends,” Dmitry Gershenson , the IMF resident representative said last week.He noted that the decision was necessary to allow the board release the last batch of funds to support the programme before it ends. The arrangement, approved with effect from June 12, 2006 was due to expire on June 11, 2009, but instead will now be in force until August 14, 2009. If the review report is approved, Rwanda will receive USD 1.5 billion to support the program that allows low interest lending facility. Rwanda emerges best exhibitor at ‘Jua Kali’ Rwanda emerged overall best exhibitor in the recently concluded ‘Jua Kali’ regional exhibition that was held in Tanzania. Jua Kali is an annual exhibition that draws together small and medium business people with hand made products from the East African countries. Epaphrodite Binamungu the President of the chamber of art, craft and artisan at the private sector federation said that this has been Rwanda’s third victory in a row at this exhibition. “We were able to win in all categories because we had good organization before going into and during the exhibition,” Binamungu explained Rwanda emerged the winner in the Best Exhibitor category, Best Fashion Show and Culture category and had the best stands matched with organization. Rwandan remittances to go up by 30 percent Rwanda’s private inflows from abroad are expected to reach $175m (Rwf99.6b) by the end of this year with an increase of 30 percent from last year, the National Bank of Rwanda said this week. This follows an increase by 24 percent in the first half of 2009, beating earlier forecasts that remittances will drop by 15 percent at the end of the year. In the first six months of this year statistics indicate that $85.69 million (Rwf48.39 billion) was remitted into the economy compared to $69.13 million (Rwf38.9 billion) in the same period last year. “Rwandans abroad have been transferring significant amounts of money to their relatives and families. The large amount of this money goes mainly to social assistance,” Francois Kanimba, the Governor Central Bank told Business Times in an interview recently. Kigali skyline to gain from new US$60M 5-Hotel Kigali City is set to have a new world class five-star hotel in a record time of 28 months. The ground-breaking ceremony was held on Monday at the former Jali Club in the presence of the then Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, James Musoni. “We are very grateful for having taken this remarkable step of construction that will avail a truly 5-star hotel standard on the Rwandan market. We are very optimistic that everything will go successfully as laid out in the plan,” Billy Cheung, the New Century Development Limited Chief Executive Officer (CEO) said at the ceremony. Cheung said that the preliminary decision was based on their unanimous intuition that Rwanda is committed to creating one of the world’s best destinations for investment and businesses. BK total assets increase by 20 percent The Bank of Kigali (BK) this week announced that it has registered a 20 percent growth in its total assets as of 30th September compared to the same period in 2008. It attributed this to the focus on customer services and relationships. Astatement published in the press last week says that the financial institution has also registered a profit of Rwf4.5 billion after tax for the period ending September 30, 2009. The statement also said that, this result was due to higher interest income which has grown by 24 percent compared to the same period last year. Also according to the statement, the profit for nine months is higher than that of the entire 2007. With this performance, the bank also expects to see this year’s total profits surpass the Rwf5.6 billion which they earned last year. MTN Rwanda in talks with TEAMS Rwanda’s leading telecom company by market share, MTN, is in talks with the East African Marine Systems (TEAMS), the company which landed the fibre optic cable on the Kenyan port city of Mombasa on 12 June 2009. MTN’s Senior Marketing Executive, Yvonne Makolo revealed that the negotiations are ongoing and that they are on a high level. She however declined to mention the time the company will sign the deal or be connected saying both parties are still negotiating. Once MTN is connected to the TEAMS cable MTN’s subscribers are set to enjoy fast and uninterrupted Internet connection. Ends