Senate of Rwanda calls for diversification & value addition of exports

The Senate of Rwanda has called for further increase in diversification and value addition to export products to help the country to reduce imbalance between imports and exports.

Senators said that Rwanda should go well beyond its three traditional export commodities namely coffee, tea and minerals, to embrace other commodities such as vegetables, fruits and other products in order to widen its exports base and wither through effects of international price fluctuations.

Despite the observed improvement in the trade balance in 2016, which saw the trade deficit improved by 5.9 percent to $1649.7 million, BNR said, the import bill continued to outstrip export receipts, exerting pressures on the Rwandan franc exchange rate as the Franc depreciated against the dollar by 9.7 percent in 2016 compared to a depreciation of 7.6 percent in 2015.

NAEB stated that horticulture is seen as critical for exports growth and diversification, whereby Rwanda aims to increase horticulture exports more than tenfold, from $11 million in 2013 to $120 million (about Rwf99 billion) by 2018.

source: allafrica.com