Rwanda Investment Climate Project Improved Business – Kanimba

Dias Nyesiga

29 June 2011

Government is optimistic that the business environment will improve tremendously following the recent initiatives by Rwanda Investment Climate Project (RICP).

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Francois Kanimba, said the project, which focuses on improving business registration, land registration and commercial justice will improve the country’s business environment.

“(RICP) is an initiative to improve the investment climate by putting in place systems and an institutional framework that would help to remove the excessive red tape and unnecessary bureaucracies affecting the conduct of business in our country,” he said.

The Minister is also optimistic that building on RICP’s momentum will create deeper reform agenda in doing business in Rwanda.

“These reforms had been identified by our private sector as critical to allow the successful running of their businesses and were undertaken while bearing in mind the best practices available

worldwide,” he said Kanimba further added the government has simplified processes for paying taxes and compliance to tax procedures.

He added that: “We have also focused on improving the regulatory environment, improving service delivery and facilitating access to credit.”

Odette Uwamariya, Coordinator of RICP said that the project has managed to Improve efficiency

In business registration through on-line registration system which now takes 24 hours while registration fee dropped from Rwf259,800 to Rwf15,000 and the number of procedures from nine to two.

Odette added that business and land owners in Kigali were largely operating in a legal vacuum making them unable to use their land asset as collateral to obtain loans from financial institutions.

“It now takes 55 days to register property rather than 371 days and costs 0.4 per cent of the property’s value as opposed to 10 per cent,” she said.

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