BUSINESS ROUND-UP

Rwanda targets Asian investors As a measure of boosting the country’s private investments, Rwanda Development Board (RDB) said it will shift the focus towards attracting more investments from emerging economies specifically in Asian markets. Claire Akamanzi, the Chief Operation Officer (COO) at RDB said that the institution has already embarked on an investment campaign that seeks to tap from the big investment potential from Asia countries including India, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. She told the press that “We want to spend more time attracting investments from Asia …going into 2011. We think that targeting emerging economies particularly from Asia is going to be our main strategy for us to increase investments in 2011 and beyond.” According to Akamanzi, RDB has already sent delegations to countries like India, Thailand and Malaysia. She noted that Asia presents enormous opportunities for increasing private investment that the country badly needs to sustain high economic growth rates. “Since we went to India we have had at least five companies that have registered in Rwanda including a company that will set up a cassava processing plant,” Akamanzi said. Gov’t mulls budget review Government spending is expected to reduce by Rwf8.5 billion in a planned review of the Financial Year (FY) 2010/2011 budget as a result of a huge shortfall in the country’s tax revenue. According to the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, John Rwangombwa, domestic taxes as of November 2010 amounted to Rwf189 billion against the target of Rwf479 billion. He told Business Times that “Depending on the performance so far in the revised budget we intend to present to parliament by January next year, we expect to reduce by Rwf8.5 billion.” Rwanda’s initial budget for the FY 2010/2011 is equivalent to Rwf899 billion. The Minister said that traditionally, the budget growth has been experienced at 0.5 percent and the new development will keep the government on track to meet the overall budget targets and maintain economic stability, He allayed fears that the shortfall in tax revenue is a result of the poor performance of Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA). Mortgage law gets bankers’ nod Mortgage lenders accepted changes in the long awaited mortgage bill, saying it is sufficient enough to protect the interests of different stakeholders including developers and brokers. The amendments were approved by parliament recently following complaints from stakeholder including real estate developers, commercial banks and residential home owners who said that if implemented, the mortgage law would stifle the growth and development of the budding mortgage industry. Seeking permission before financiers to recover their money was scaring banks from financing mortgage and contributing 70 percent of the mortgage cost was not a regional practice. According to Steve Caley, the Chairman of Rwanda Bankers Association, the mortgage lenders are now comfortable with the amended law. “The maximum of 30 percent was driven by the restriction in the law that only 30 percent of a property’s value could be subject to mortgage. Now that this has been removed, lenders are free to lend against the value of the property,” Caley told Business Times. Without the amendment and 30 percent restriction, Caley said what all lenders would advance as any percentage above would be unsecured and risky. MTN Rwanda expects to land EASSY cable early next year MTN Rwanda said it will increase its data and internet capacity by 22.4 percent early next year. This will be after connecting the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), the undersea fibre-optic cable linking East African countries and the rest of the world.MTN’s Chief Operations Officer (COO), Andrew Rugege said that if connected to the fibre-optic cable, it will increase its broadband capacity to 355Mb from 200Mb. Rugege recently told Business Times that “We made heavy investment last year in building the infrastructure; this gives us an advantage against our competitors because we were able to introduce WiMax, 3G and Kigali hotspot which attracted more subscribers. MTN— which is Rwanda’s largest telecommunication company— currently offers a total bandwidth of 155Mb on fibre and additional 45Mb backup on satellite. While the MTN Group is the largest operator investor in EASSy, which is deployed along the east and south coast of Africa to service the voice, data, and video and internet needs of the region. Rwanda, Egypt negotiate aviation deal It was reported that the Egyptian Envoy to Rwanda Ambassador Khaled Abdel Rahman said that Egypt and Rwanda plans to forge an aviation deal that could see either RwandAir or Egyptair operate direct flights between Kigali and Cairo. Ambassador Khaled Abdel Rahman told Business Times that discussions are ongoing as both countries look forward to strengthen ties. “There will be soon, a direct airline between Kigali and Egypt – this will help to encourage businessmen and companies to come to Egypt,” Rahman said shortly after paying a courtesy call on Defense Minister, Gen. James Kabarebe. He also disclosed that during the discussion, the importance of enabling the bilateral relations in the economic domain was reached. RDB to promote business process outsourcing in ICT`s Among other ways, the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) considers business process outsourcing in Information Communication and Technology as a key measure of improving investment in the country. RDB`s Chief Operations Officer (COO) Clare Akamanzi said that RDB is committed to train people in software development to promote business process outsourcing.According to her, the strategy aims at utilizing the growing potential and demand in ICT development. “Rwanda is said to be a continental model in using technologies for development and we can use the opportunity to boost our investments,” Akamanzi said. She also said that the institution intends to train people in financial analysis, financial modules and legal skills. “We see great potential for BPO in Rwanda`s ICT sector, we expect to increase the number of qualified professionals available for the industry,” she said. Ends