New NAEB boss takes office

The new National Agricultural Export Board (NAEB) boss, Amb. George William Kayonga, has promised to expand Rwanda’s export base to boost volumes and foreign exchange receipts. Amb. Kayonga, who was appointed last month by the Cabinet, assumed office on Monday. He takes over from Corneille Ntakirutimana, who has been the acting director general for the past four months. “I promise to deliver on the noble mandate of growing the agro-exports sector. I will assess every situation keenly and work with the team here to deliver our targets,” said the former Rwandan high commissioner to Kenya while receiving tools of office at NAEB headquarters. Amb. Kayonga is also a former East African Community Ministry Affairs permanent secretary. While handing over office, Ntakirutimana said the board focused on boosting export revenues, mainly from coffee, tea, pyrethrum, processed milk, essential oils and honey.He said challenges like low productivity and informal cross-border trade were being addressed. He noted that the board was working with TechnoServe, which is supplying fertilisers to coffee farmers in eight districts, to improve output. TechnoServe is an agro-business support NGO.Ntakirutimana, who has also been working as the director for production at the board, revealed that works on five tea factories would start this year. He added that NAEB was expanding the horticultural sector by establishing more flower parks to increase flowers and vegetable exports.Kayonga will look to address these and other challenges the board is facing so that Rwanda can get more export volumes and revenues.Rwandan exports are dominated by a few traditional cash crops such as tea, coffee and pyrethrum, as well as minerals. They represented 58.8 per cent of total export value in the first half of this year.According to the central bank August monetary policy statement, this concentration of exports makes the Rwanda export sector vulnerable since crops are subject to weather conditions and price fluctuations on the international market.despite a decline of 5.5 per cent in tea value exports in the first half of this year, traditional exports coffee, tea and minerals’ value went up by 51.4 per cent, amounting to $166.8m from $110.2m in the same period in 2012.Coffee exports increased in value and volume by 68.3 per cent and 104.2 per cent, respectively, despite a decrease of 17.6 per cent in the coffee price.

News

New NAEB boss takes office