Alibaba delegates and RDB officials after discussions on Sunday
The Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and a 16-member delegation from Alibaba Group have held discussions that may soon put a smile on the face of farmers as well as agricultural products exporters.
On Sunday, sixteen delegates from Alibaba Group held discussions with RDB on how Alibaba can support Rwandan entrepreneurs to export more agro-products to China.
The products include beef, crayfish, avocados, chili pepper, french beans, tree tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables.
The discussion is a follow up to the eWTP (electronic World Trade Platform) agreement that was signed by President Paul Kagame and Alibaba Group’s Executive Chairman, Jack Ma on 31, October 2018.
This, they said would be done by streamlining the intergovernmental policies and regulations, being part of the agricultural supply chain process, providing the necessary infrastructure to boost agro-processing, lowering the cost of air-freight transport and providing more training to Rwandan entrepreneurs to enable them trade more product volumes on the platform.
RDB CEO, Claire Akamanzi said: “China presents a huge market for us, with its big population and their increasing spending power. There are unique and big opportunities we are exploring. We implore Rwandan SMEs to package their products in a way that suits the Chinese market and sell as much as possible through the Alibaba platform.”
The delegation from China was led by Alibaba Group Vice President, Hou Yi.
“We found that many of Rwanda’s agricultural products are of high quality hence why we want to increase their volumes and standards, invest in agro-processing industries and the supply chain,” Yi said.
“We also want to raise more crayfish here because Rwanda has many fresh water lakes and a favorable climate. The crayfish market is a US$ 20 billion one in China and Chinese consume between 1 and 1.2 tons of crayfish every four months.”
“Therefore, as soon as we have the right policies and regulations in place and infrastructure and affordable air-freight, we can start exporting more Rwandan products.”
