Kagame hosts Turkish investors

President Paul Kagame yesterday received a delegation of Turkish investors at Village Urugwiro who have been in the country on a fact finding mission to explore potential areas of investment.The group of five from Koza and Ipek Holding and Limak Holding group of companies led by Akin Ipek, Chairman of Koza and Ipek, have been in the country since Tuesday last week.Speaking to The Sunday Times shortly after meeting the President, Ipek said Rwanda has an attractive business environment suitable for investments.“We are planning to invest in the areas of mining, media, tourism, construction and education. Soon, we are going to come back and explore potential mining areas of investment,” said Ipek.The Turkish Investors’ visit follows last month’s visit to Turkey by President Kagame at the invitation of members of the Turkish business community.During his tour, Kagame met prominent Turkish business people and told them that Rwanda was open to investors.Ipek observed that it was very easy to start a business in Rwanda compared to other African countries.Starting a business now takes only six hours and the service combines all registration requirements under one roof which include incorporation, taxes and employee social security.The doing business reforms aim at promoting a business friendly environment and encourage the growth of the private sector.“There are so many business people from Turkey who want to come and invest in this country. Our visit has been very successful and I am going to tell them to come and identify areas where they can invest in,” Ipek pointed out.John Gara, the Chief Executive of Rwanda Development Board (RDB), said the Turkish group briefed the President about their prospective areas of investment.Gara noted that, the President was pleased by their plans and told them that Rwanda has worked progressively to improve its investment climate in order to make it easy to do business.