Business round up

Food crop yield up 6.2% Rwanda’s national food crop output climbed by 6.2 percent to 5.079m tons in the fist three months of 2010 to 5.079m from 4.783m tons in the same period last year, making the country more food secure. Government green revolution policy, conducive climatic conditions, and the increase in use of fertilizers contributed to the rise in food crop harvest, according to the quarterly bulletin by the National Bank of Rwanda (BNR). The report says that overall production in cereals increased by 25.15 percent, mainly occasioned by the growth in maize and wheat production. There was a sensitive decline in the production of paddy rice and sorghum. “The total production of roots and tubers experienced better performances with17.39 percent raise mainly attributed to Irish potatoes, and cassava whose production increased by 25.84 percent and 20 percent respectively,” the report said. The recent high output in agriculture has led to the fall in food prices and has also been central to the low inflationary pressures. Production of bananas decreased by 8.8 percent compared as a result of uprooting non-productive banana plantations that were heavily infected while maintaining those that are productive. Production of coffee, which is one of Rwanda’s major export crops, sharply declined by 58.8 percent to 384.6 tons in the fist quarter of 2010 from 934.5 tons in the same period last year. Tea production experienced a significant increase in the period under review RwandAir wins contract to airlift RDF peacekeepers RwandAir and the Ministry of Defence (MINADEF) have signed a deal to transport Rwanda Defense Forces to and from Darfur, in the next two months. “This is a big opportunity for the national carrier as it is in its early growing stage...the carrier is not profit running at this stage, but contracts like these will improve its cash flow,” said Rene Janata, RwandAir’s Chief Executive Officer. The $1.6m (Rwf947.5m) agreement gives RwandAir the duty to transport four battalions of 800 soldiers each until September 2010 with plans to renew it January next year. Janata cited that according to the UN deal, RwandAir will charge $500 (Rwf296, 125) per soldier. This is the second time the national carrier has been awarded the contract to transport soldiers to Darfur. Rene said the airline had facility problems at the time the first deal was cancelled and that since then RwandAir has acquired its own fleets. “The airline (Sun Air) we sub-contracted didn’t have the capacity to carryout the job at that time,” he explained.Economy registers strong recovery A strong positive growth of the industry and service sectors in the first three months of 2010 is offering optimism that the real economy will bounce back with a strong Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate in the financial year 2010/11, Central Bank statistics have shown. The service and industry sector were significantly affected by the external shocks of global financial crisis and the liquidity crunch last year. But a mixture of better international economic environment, continuing agriculture sector performances and improvement in the banking system liquidity conditions have ensured recovery in the respective sectors. According to the Central Bank’s quarterly report, the total turnovers registered by large companies in the industry and service sectors rose by 22.3 percent to Rwf310.65 billions in the first quarter of 2010 from Rwf253.96 billion in the same period last year. This is expected to boost economic growth prospects for this year to between 7 and 8 percent after declining to 6 percent last year from 11.5 percent in 2008. “The performance of the economy has greatly improved this year and we expect growth to be much higher than last year. For instance in the Service industry average growth should be higher than 20 percent,” Francois Kanimba, the Central Bank Governor told Business Times recently. CMAC to offer training on bond valuation and trading The Capital Markets Advisory Council (CMAC) will train all professionals involved in the Initial Public Offer (IPO) processes in bond valuation and trading. The one day workshop that will take place on August 3, 2010 at hotel Laico Umubano targets industry professionals in the financial sector, media, law, accountants, public relations firms. “The purpose of the workshop is to provide knowledge and assist the public and private companies the ways of accessing funds through debt markets,” said Olivier Kamanzi, the Deputy Executive Director of CMAC.The workshop will provide and develop human skills capacity to industry professionals. Kamanzi also said that the workshop targets the public and private companies (issuers) expecting to raising new funds through bond issuance. RECO & RWASCO opened branch in Nyamata The national water and electricity body, RECO&RWASCO, has opened up a new branch in Nyamata Sector, Bugesera District to serve the increasing demand for efficient services from the surrounding population. The branch was unveiled on Wednesday by the Director General of RECO&RWASCO, Yves Muyange, in presence of the mayor of Bugesera, other district leaders as well as several RECO employees. Speaking at the function, Muyange said that the branch would increase the efficiency of RECO-RWASCO operations, reduce costs and increase the amount of water and electricity supplied to the Sector. “Earlier on, our customers in this region had to cover a distance of almost 25km from Nyamata to access the antenna in Kanombe. With the new station now, the body will be able to efficiently handle matters brought up by the people and save them from traveling long distances,” Muyange said. Ends