President Paul Kagame at the 3rd Africa Global Business Forum in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (photo/twitter)
Rwanda is keen to push for an increase in the volume and quality investments with United Arab Emirates (UAE)-President Paul Kagame said Tuesday.
The United Arab Emirates has demonstrated itself as a global business hotspot. In Africa alone, Available statistics indicate that total exports from Dubai to Africa are close to $1.3 billion annually.
Rwanda, with a fastest growing economy and conducive investment policies, could be Dubai’s next investment destination.
President Kagame, who was speaking at the ongoing two-day third Africa Global Business Forum (AGBF2015) at the Atlantis, Dubai, in United Arab Emirates, said; “We want to see increasing volume and quality and two-way exchange of investment between Dubai and Rwanda.”
Rwanda established Kigali Free Trade Zone, with a purpose of becoming the main shipment point for goods in a region with a targeted market 60 million people.
According to Rwanda’s Ministry of Trade,UAE occupies 24% of export to the Kigali Free Trade Zone, mainly enroute from China and other countries.
Early this year,Rwanda signed a deal worth $75 million with Kigali Water Limited, a Rwandan-registered company owned by Metito, a water management company based in the United Arab Emirates, to treat water from Nyabarongo River.
The agreement will facilitate Rwanda in meeting its target of giving all its population access to clean water by 2018 up from current 75%.
For President Kagame, “We are making the kinds of investments that will render being landlocked irrelevant,” he told the forum attended by African Heads of State, Ministers, dignitaries, global CEOs, heads of private banks, sovereign wealth funds and private equity firms.
Rwanda-a land-locked East African nation, is rapidly recovering the economy, with a growth rate of 8%, 21 years after the genocide.
President Kagame told the forum that: “If Rwanda can make progress we have seen, it means other countries in similar situations can also achieve that.”
President Paul Kagame (L) (photo/twitter)
Uganda’s Prime minister Ruhakana Rugunda (center) (photo/twitter)
