{
  "title": "Q&A Interview: Inside Rwanda’s Thriving Private Sector – IMF F&D",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2019/06/private-sector-development-in-rwanda-trenches",
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  "summary": "In an exclusive interview, Clare Akamanzi explains how Rwanda is encouraging private sector development.",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Role of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB)",
      "content": "- Vision: \"to transform Rwanda into a dynamic global hub for business, investment, and innovation.\"\n- Mandate:\n  - Promote investments and exports.\n  - Provide services covering a range of issues faced by the business community: negotiating contracts with the private sector, helping investors to secure concessions, and settling disagreements.\n  - Manage privatization of government assets and tourism promotion, including national parks.\n- Outcome: Since RDB’s establishment in 2009, doing business in Rwanda has become easier and the private sector has contributed more to economic growth."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Key quantitative findings and indicators",
      "content": "- Aid reliance: \"About 25 years ago, we were 100 percent reliant on aid, but today we are 86 percent self-reliant, which means that we depend on aid for only about 14 percent of our budget.\"\n- Jobs: \"On average, the private sector now creates about 38,000 jobs per year.\"\n- Ease of Doing Business rankings:\n  - \"29th easiest place to do business in the world and the second in Africa.\"\n  - \"A few years ago, we were ranked at 150.\"\n  - Earlier phrasing: RDB recently won \"the 2 spot regionally in the World Bank’s ease of doing business rankings.\"\n- Company registration:\n  - You can \"register a company in six hours.\"\n  - Annual registrations rose from \"about 500 companies\" to \"about 13,000 companies a year.\"\n- Investment flows:\n  - \"Last year, by the time we closed our investment books, we had registered $2 billion worth of investments.\"\n  - In 2010, registered investments were \"$318 million.\"\n- Specific projects and private-sector activities:\n  - \"Volkswagen is assembling in Rwanda.\"\n  - \"Positivo ... is assembling laptops.\"\n  - \"Andela ... is going to train about 700 local programmers.\"\n  - \"A company that has begun refining our coltan.\"\n- Costs and barriers:\n  - Legal document cost: estimated \"about $400\" for articles and memoranda of association.\n  - Tourism segment: MICE \"is already accounting for about 10 percent of our tourism receipts.\""
    },
    {
      "heading": "Reforms and interventions to improve the business environment",
      "content": "- Focused sector strategy with Ministry of Economic Planning to identify sectors needing private-sector engagement and able to generate wealth and jobs.\n- Concrete reforms implemented to simplify:\n  - Starting a business.\n  - Registering property.\n  - Filing taxes and accessing tax-related information.\n- Digital solutions used to automate processes (example: business registration automation).\n- Policy trade-off example:\n  - Eliminated requirement for articles and memoranda of association to reduce start-up costs and barriers, recognizing short-term costs to some private actors (e.g., lawyers) for longer-term private-sector growth."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Enabling factors: political will and leadership",
      "content": "- High-level support:\n  - \"The Cabinet, a related steering committee, and the president himself have taken an avid interest\" in reforms.\n  - President Kagame \"has made himself available to us.\"\n- Political backing allowed removal of entrenched steps that imposed costs, enabling scale-up from about 500 to about 13,000 annual company registrations."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Challenges constraining private-sector development",
      "content": "- Landlocked status: \"The high cost of transportation, especially for imported goods, is evident in almost every sector of the economy.\"\n- Overall cost of doing business remains high: need to reduce costs of financing, energy, and infrastructure.\n- Structural issues persist despite reductions in red tape."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Strategies and sector positioning to mitigate constraints",
      "content": "- Position Rwanda as a knowledge and services hub to minimize reliance on transport-intensive sectors.\n- Promote leisure tourism (e.g., mountain gorillas) and develop MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) to boost tourism receipts and make Rwanda a hub for regional and global events.\n- Invest in service-based sectors to address disadvantages from being landlocked.\n\nQ&A Interview: Inside Rwanda’s Thriving Private Sector – IMF F&D\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- الانفتاح أمام الأعمال\n  - الانفتاح أمام الأعمال (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - الانفتاح أمام الأعمال (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Entrevista: El éxito del sector privado en Rwanda – F&D del FMI\n  - Entrevista: El éxito del sector privado en Rwanda – F&D del FMI (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Entrevista: El éxito del sector privado en Rwanda – F&D del FMI (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Séance de questions : les racines du secteur privé florissant du Rwanda – F&D FMI\n  - Séance de questions : les racines du secteur privé florissant du Rwanda – F&D FMI (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Séance de questions : les racines du secteur privé florissant du Rwanda – F&D FMI (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Open for Business - June 2019 | FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT | International Monetary Fund\n  - Open for Business - June 2019 | FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT | International Monetary Fund (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Open for Business - June 2019 | FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT | International Monetary Fund (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- На передовой – Финансы и развитие – июнь 2019 года\n  - На передовой – Финансы и развитие – июнь 2019 года (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - На передовой – Финансы и развитие – июнь 2019 года (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- 商业开放 - 前 沿 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊\n  - 商业开放 - 前 沿 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - 商业开放 - 前 沿 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2019/06/private-sector-development-in-rwanda-trenches"
    }
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    "Published: June 1, 2019",
    "Vision: \"to transform Rwanda into a dynamic global hub for business, investment, and innovation.\"",
    "Mandate:",
    "Outcome: Since RDB’s establishment in 2009, doing business in Rwanda has become easier and the private sector has contributed more to economic growth.",
    "Aid reliance: \"About 25 years ago, we were 100 percent reliant on aid, but today we are 86 percent self-reliant, which means that we depend on aid for only about 14 percent of our budget.\"",
    "Jobs: \"On average, the private sector now creates about 38,000 jobs per year.\"",
    "Ease of Doing Business rankings:",
    "Company registration:",
    "Investment flows:",
    "Specific projects and private-sector activities:",
    "Costs and barriers:",
    "Focused sector strategy with Ministry of Economic Planning to identify sectors needing private-sector engagement and able to generate wealth and jobs.",
    "Concrete reforms implemented to simplify:",
    "Digital solutions used to automate processes (example: business registration automation).",
    "Policy trade-off example:",
    "High-level support:",
    "Political backing allowed removal of entrenched steps that imposed costs, enabling scale-up from about 500 to about 13,000 annual company registrations.",
    "Landlocked status: \"The high cost of transportation, especially for imported goods, is evident in almost every sector of the economy.\"",
    "Overall cost of doing business remains high: need to reduce costs of financing, energy, and infrastructure.",
    "Structural issues persist despite reductions in red tape.",
    "Position Rwanda as a knowledge and services hub to minimize reliance on transport-intensive sectors.",
    "Promote leisure tourism (e.g., mountain gorillas) and develop MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) to boost tourism receipts and make Rwanda a hub for regional and global events.",
    "Invest in service-based sectors to address disadvantages from being landlocked.",
    "**الانفتاح أمام الأعمال**",
    "**Entrevista: El éxito del sector privado en Rwanda – F&D del FMI**",
    "**Séance de questions : les racines du secteur privé florissant du Rwanda – F&D FMI**",
    "**Open for Business - June 2019 | FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT | International Monetary Fund**",
    "**На передовой – Финансы и развитие – июнь 2019 года**",
    "**商业开放 - 前 沿 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊**"
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