Rwanda: Govt Woos EU Investors, Market

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East African Business Week (Kampala)

23 August 2008
Posted to the web 25 August 2008

Bosco Hitimana
Kigali

Rwandan products may soon increase on the European markets, thanks to the second Rwanda Business Follow-up Series and Expo 2008 concluded yesterday in London.

The event was organised by the Rwanda Investment and Export Promotion Agency (RIEPA) in conjunction with the Rwandan Embassy in the UK, the Rwanda Diaspora Investment UK Ltd (RDI) and the Rwanda Private Sector Federation (PSF) from August 20-24.

The event is a follow up on the previous Rwanda investment conferences and expos held in London in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Its main objective was to keep the momentum for sustained demand for Rwandan products and investment opportunities among the business community in the UK.

Rwanda exports coffee, tea and flowers to the European countries.

Under the theme, "Expanding Investment and Market Opportunities for Rwanda", the expo attracted over 26 Rwandan participants from coffee, tea, handcrafts, banking, agro-processing and tour operators.

In the first place, the Rwandan business community that attended the event held one-on-one meetings with the UK investors and suppliers.

The officials of the Rwanda Investment and Export Promotion Agency (RIEPA), made investors' follow-up series with contacts initiated during previous conferences and expos.

These included British investors who were interested in investment opportunities in Rwanda. The target was to move them from interest level to the next level of commitment to invest in Rwanda. About fifty companies had been targeted from the beginning by the Rwandan embassy in the UK.

The second session of the event featured an expo that showcased Rwandan merchandise to the British nationals as well as the rest of the European nationals.

Rwanda's tea, coffee, tourism, financial sector, fruit juices and agro processing products won lots of love from the Europeans. The Rwandan Diaspora community also participated in the expo.

Rwanda chose Britain because British are Europe's main tea and coffee consumers. 87% of their population regularly drinks a cup of tea. In 2006, British consumers spent about £497million on tea and about £649million on coffee.

"The growing fair trade and organic sectors in the UK, in which quality is more important than price, offer a great potential for Rwandan tea and coffee producers," RIEPA statement says.

Rwandan coffee has already been on the shelves of Starbucks, Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury or at least 1,000 stores in the UK. The event was also a forum to attract the Europeans to visit Rwanda as tourists.

The United Kingdom is the fourth most important market for tourism, just after the United States, Germany and Japan.

In 2006, almost 70 million visits by UK residents were registered abroad, up from some 57 million in 2000, spending £34billion, up from some £24billion in 2000. Close to 45milllion out of the 70million visits were associated with tourist trips.

In line with the generally rapid growth of tourism in Sub -Saharan region, visits by UK residents went up from some 800,000 in 2002 to over 1.3 million in 2006.

Rwanda's exports rose by 53.5% in the first half of 2008 registering over $212million. Tourism, coffee, tea and mining dominate top of the list of exports. Subjecting to the European market stands more chances of revenue collection.

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