FDI worth US$600m recorded in 2009

The Rwanda Development Board has reported that the country’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows registered positive growth in 2009. Speaking to The New Times, the board’s Deputy CEO of Business Operations and Services, Clare Akamanzi, said that Rwanda managed to attract a whooping US$600m in 2009. She further revealed that for the same period, RDB statistics as at December 20th 2009 indicated that Rwanda’s total registered investments, both local and foreign, had reached an all time high of more than US$ 1.1 billion. Just prior to end of the year, RDB says that a total of 106 investment projects were registered which are expected to create an additional 11,797 jobs for the economy at full operation. Among these, RDB says that 58 projects are already operational representing 54.7 percent, with an estimated level of investment worth more than US$ 990,million while 48 others representing 45.3 percent are not yet operational with an estimated value of US$ 135 million. The provisional statistics availed exclusively to The New Times by RDB indicates that out of the entire basket of total investments registered in 2009 ,the FDI component includes 34 registered projects representing 47.7 percent of the total registered investments with a value of US$536 Million. 3 projects were also undertaken by the Diaspora’s community members with an investment value of US$9 Million. .Akamanzi said that Rwanda’s target for 2009 was to increase the level of investment by 20% compared to the year 2008 which RDB considered as its baseline. “When we started 2009 amidst the global financial crisis, we knew that mobilizing capital for investments was going to be tougher than before. However, we have done much better than we expected with a significant increase of almost 40% in the value of investments registered, although we have seen a slight decline in the number of projects registered by about 9%”, she added. RDB consequently hopes that for Rwanda, the year 2010 will focus on increasing the investment levels even more through improving the investment climate further with the aim of making the time and cost of doing business in Rwanda, much easier, as well as promoting the development of infrastructure for investments. “The future is definitely bright”, Akamanzi added. Ends

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FDI worth US$600m recorded in 2009