Visits by Carlos Slim, Aliko Dangote is good news for Rwanda’s investment drive

Mr Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man alongside other global telecoms experts visited Rwanda during the Broadband Commission meeting in Kigali last month. While information is still very scanty as to whether the Mexican billionaire put some cash into Rwanda’s economy, other members of the Broadband Commission did. One can, however, arguably say that various tempting offers were put on table for him to pick up. What is in the public domain is that, oh, yes, Mr Sunnil Mittal Bharti, who sits in the Broadband Commission and is the owner of Bharti Airtel made a stunning announcement. Mr Bharti, it appears, could not resist the temptation of putting his cash in Rwanda. His company joined the local telecoms industry in style, along with a war chest of US$100 million with intentions of bringing telecom services to more Rwandans. The hosting of the Broadband Commission in Rwanda constituted without a doubt, one of the biggest news of the year. Rwanda, one can say with some level of confidence, must have killed several birds with only a single stone. Rwanda shaped the global strategy of availing broadband to a vast majority of the world’s population on one hand, while on the other, showcasing how such a thing is being done, right here for its citizens. In October, it appears that Rwanda gained in other areas too. To get the confidence of the world’s richest man along with other telecoms bigwigs was without a doubt a very strategic move. Such a move will have various wide ranging effects for quite sometime. Then came the news that Orascom Holdings was committing some US$100 million to boost Rwanda’s energy production. The firm is owned by another African billionaire, Onsi Sawiris. No sooner had Kigali forgotten about Sawiris and his Orascom deal than another African billionaire came trooping in, this time in the company of a visiting African Head of State. It is widely reported that Al-Hajj Aliko Dangote’s fortunes surged by almost 600 percent in the past year, making him the world’s biggest gainer in percentage terms and Africa’s richest individual for the first time. The catalyst for this unbelievable African story is his listing of Dangote Cement, which integrated his investments across Africa. As Africa’s biggest cement maker, Dangote has cement plants under construction in Zambia, Tanzania, Congo and Ethiopia and is building cement terminals in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia. The million dollar question is, will Dangote put his money in Rwanda as it is known that the Dangote Group is the kind of African conglomerate Rwanda is hungry to host with interests in sugar, flour milling, salt processing, cement manufacturing, textiles, real estate, and oil and gas? It has not escaped observers that Rwanda’s construction boom must have caught the attention of Africa’s top magnate. The convergence of all these stories constitutes one very powerful message. For one, the four billionaire investors who recently visited or did deals with Rwanda are all from the southern hemisphere. That shows that the south-south cooperation, without a doubt, will provide the impetus necessary to deliver on Rwanda’s investment promotion, that is truly on the overdrive. Especially, bearing in mind that it is less than 10 years before the final countdown otherwise known as Vision 2020. The author is an editor with The New Times fredoluoch@yahoo.com Ends

Opinions

Visits by Carlos Slim, Aliko Dangote is good news for Rwanda’s investment drive