Tackling insolvency and trading across borders have been set as priority areas for private sector development from the 2012/13 fiscal year, Minister of Trade and Industry, Francois Kanimba, has said.

Kanimba made the remarks during a joint sector review at the ministry’s headquarters that brought together all stakeholders including development partners to discuss different policies geared towards developing the sector.

“This is an area where Rwanda is lagging behind and which needs attention,” observed the minister.

Rwanda ranks 165 out 183 countries on insolvency matters, hence the basis for the formation of a body for insolvency practitioners to solve issues involving insolvency legally.

The other area of focus is putting up measures to increase trade across borders, a move that is expected to speed up shipping process.

In a similar move, Rwanda reduced the number of trade requirements and enhanced its joint border management procedures with Uganda and other neighbours, leading to an improvement in trade logistics environment.

This month’s joint sector review is mainly setting targets and priorities areas for the year 2012/13 along with policy actions required to achieve the set goals while another meeting set for October is meant to evaluate the achieved targets and challenges encountered.

“The platform allows stakeholders to ponder issues like the gap in cross border trading and creation of jobs,” Kanimba said.

To achieve the goal of increasing trading across boarders, government is eyeing the one stop border posts and capacity building for exporters through business development centres to be the key players.

During the meeting, it was stated that the Nemba One Stop Border Post at Rwanda-Burundi boarder post is complete and operational though some challenges need to be addressed for full operationalisation.

Nemba border post was developed to address the challenge of delays experienced in cargo clearance at border points. The delays were attributed to weak institutional, management systems, inadequate physical infrastructure and services required to support cross border cargo management.

The project allows border operation officials from both countries to work together under one building that is equipped with integrated Information and Communication Technology (ICT), like a cargo clearance system and application of ICT in freight tracking. This would lead to a significant reduction in the number of stops road users make when crossing from one country to the other.

Some of the challenges highlighted include lighting which compels border officials to halt operations to stop at 6pm, lack of accommodation, while only the Rwandan side of the border is computerised.

Andrew Thornburn, Market linkages Adviser at Trade Mark East Africa, said two factors are necessary to boost trade across borders including continued reduction of paper for shipping and the time it takes.

“The costs of exporting are very high and the more the cost goes down, the higher the indigenous companies stay competitive on the market,” said Thornburn.

The sector review also identified five indicators based on Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS).

They include; continued improvement of business environment index, while moving from doing business focus to investment climate focus on reforms, investor perception index targeting more efficient public private dialogue in the implementation of business reforms, increased percentage of investment in GDP to 23 per cent, increased revenue from goods exports to $395m in 2012/13 from 387 last year.

Last year, Rwanda’s exports increase by 53 per cent in terms of value and 48 per cent in volume with coffee and tea representing 35.7 percent.

Another area of focus is tourism with revenue projected to amount to $ 276m against the $216 million recorded last year.

The meeting noted that this would be achieved through the development and promotion of the Kivu belt tourism, rehabilitation of regional airstrips to improve transport access to destinations and development of the meeting, incentive, conference and events (MICE) strategy.

Source: allafrica.com