Businesspersons from Southern Province have been challenged to take advantage of the available opportunities across the country and within the region, including agriculture, as opposed to keeping within a single sector of interest.

The call was made, last week, in Huye District during a meeting between the business community in the province and the Private Sector Federation.

The meeting intended to know how businesspersons in the area are performing, identify the challenges faced and present to them opportunities available locally and across the region.

Benjamin Gasamagera, the president of Private Sector Federation, said businesspeople should invest in various sectors, including agriculture, food processing industries among others.

Jean Marie Vianney Maniraguha, a businessman in real estate and hospitality industries, said they are interested in investment, but there is a need to bolster agriculture as one of the means to address the import-export imbalance.

"Agriculture is crucial, we must invest more in value addition of agricultural products to reduce this trade imbalance. Trucks that bring commodities into the country return empty handed which we should not allow,” said Maniraguha.

He called for a decentralised mechanism that would allow even the smallholder farmers undertake modern farming by setting up small processing units.

Maniraguha also decried lack of interest by insurers to support agriculture which hinders large-scale investments.

A person is reluctant to invest say, Rwf200 million in agriculture, because there is no insurance coverage which can cushion the investor against loss, he said.

"Banks and insurance companies are also members of PSF. We will have a specific session to talk with the insurance companies and we promise to do advocacy in this regard. We will engage them to work on this matter; there is no way agriculture insurance would not be possible,” Maniraguha said.

Huye mayor Eugène Kayiranga Muzuka said businesspeople should focus on working together through cooperatives to make high quality and standard products to compete at the regional market.

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