President Kagame speaking to Bloomberg TV’s Jennifer Zabasajja at the 3rd Qatar Economic Forum. Photos/Urugwiro Village.
President Paul Kagame says that the development of Bugesera International Airport will be at 70 percent by the end of the year and fully developed by mid next year.
The Head of State made the revelation in Doha, Qatar, during a chat with Bloomberg TV’s Jennifer Zabasajja, Chief Africa Correspondent, at the 3rd Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday.
At the forum which brought together Heads of State and Government, CEO’s of international institutions, leading global investors and other stakeholders, President Kagame talked about Rwanda’s strategic partnership with Qatar and other countries in the quest for development and cooperation.
The Head of State used the opportunity to talk about Rwanda’s aviation plans and partnership with Qatar, pointing out that the new airport the two countries are working together to build will be ready by the end of the first or second quarter next year.
“We’ve done all that with negotiations, and we are actually implementing what we have agreed upon. We have been patterning in the airline, but also in the airport that we are jointly investing in. Work is in progress. We’ve gone a long way,”
“We’re just trying to speed it up to make sure that we are ready, up and running in a short time,” President Kagame said, adding that “by the end of the year we should be around 70 percent”, when asked when the new airport will be operational.
President Kagame said that the national carrier RwandAir is already growing and strong, adding that the new airport will be up and running sometime in the third quarter of 2024.
President Kagame spoke about a wide range of things.
Cementing Rwanda’s close ties with Qatar, President Kagame said that the country looks up to countries which are already leaders in terms of growth for partnerships in different sectors.
“For example, with Qatar, we are partnering in aviation. Qatar Airways is the leader in this sector,” he said, adding that Rwanda identifies countries it can work together with and the opportunities available to explore in a bid to fast-track socioeconomic transformation.
President Kagame reiterated the importance of cooperation with countries that are already advanced and their role in investing in developing countries, pointing out that no country can manage to do it on its own, especially for small countries like Rwanda.
“You need to have a vision of what you want to do or be and then forge these partnerships,” he said, adding that Qatar is one of strongest partners Rwanda and Africa have.
“It was a partnership of choice that we made. We scan across the world with there, is this region the Gulf region,” the Head of State said adding that when one looks on the map, the region, along with India, South East Asia and others, are all leaders in growth and provide a huge opportunity for partnership.
“For us, there are key areas we look at when we are trying to make these investments. We are looking at market leaders in different areas,” President Kagame said, explaining what Rwanda looks at when building partnerships with different countries.
President Kagame also spoke about the UK-Rwanda Immigration Partnership and the reason behind it, which was to resolve a global migration crisis, with a safer alternative that would save lives but said people had the right to interpret it the way they did but pointed out that its success largely depends on how the UK handles it.
President Kagame joined other global leaders ad the host, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, for the three-day forum.
“We did not really beg anybody to work with us or to send migrants to Rwanda. It’s an idea that was developed to solve a problem. And migrants issues are about human capital gaps that exist and have these movements but the origin can also be instability in different parts of the world,”
“The partnership, therefore, was forged around saying how do we address this problem? And there came a development partnership around that, which would mean resettling migrants who need to settle down and have the freedom to do what they want to do in places that they are stable,” President Kagame said.
