Curtains closed down last week at the inaugural Rwanda-Zimbabwe Trade and Investment conference, after convening over 200 participants from both countries to discuss ways of strengthening bilateral trade relations. A total of five cooperation agreements were signed to further increase trade during the event organized by various partners including Zimtrade, Zimbabwe’s trade development and promotion agency and the Rwanda Development Board (RDB). For Zimbabwe, increasing trade with Rwanda will open further markets to the East African Community Common Market and Customers Union that boasts of market potential of over 132 million people. Consequently, Rwanda plans to benefit from Zimbabwe’s service sector particularly on the country’s academic reputation and high literacy rate to export services in the education sector. Already, President Paul Kagame has requested a decent pool of qualified teachers from Zimbabwe, in what he described as a ‘case of urgency.” However, to unlock opportunities presented by some of these agreements, experts think that there is a need to look into key concerns that were raised during the 3-day conference. The New Times’ Edwin Ashimwe caught up with Zimtrade CEO Allan Majuru, for his take on this and more that transpired in the conference. Excerpts: A lot has happened during this conference. But what would you say are the key takeaways especially to the business communities? I think one key thing is there are massive business opportunities that these countries can tap into. When you look at what happened, the opportunities seem limitless. Let’s talk of agriculture, export of services, ICT, extension of services teachers among others. All those things have come to the fore. We have fresh produce that we can export here and we are going to tap into that. And also furniture, we have started having discussions with regard to what is going to take place. The opportunities are limitless, all we want to do as specific countries is to make sure that we provide a platform for our countries to trade efficiently and competitively. Several MoUs, bilateral deals were signed during the same conference. How do you plan to ensure that they are materialized? The MoUs are meant to provide guidelines, with regard to what the two countries can do together. The platforms have been given, and we now want the respective private sector players to take advantage. Government doesn’t do business, it rather facilitates business. That has been done. What we now need to do is to work with the respective private sector players to make sure that they understand the guidelines that have been put in place and how then they can do business with each other. President Paul Kagame recently made case for human resources for Rwanda’s education system. Is this something that is currently being looked into? The urgency is much appreciated and when it comes from the head of state it is something that we also need to urgently look at, and as we speak, communication has already been sent to the relevant authorities for us to see how best we can put in place modalities for that aspect to develop. And I think for us as a country in terms of education ranking in Africa we are one of the most literate countries. This is coming from a result of good teachers. We are able to export that as a service and it is something that I hope in the coming future we will be celebrating. That means that we also strengthen not only the trade but also cultural relations between the two countries. What is the role of Diaspora to facilitate trade between the two countries? Diaspora is a key component of facilitating trade. They are the brand ambassadors, they understand more than anyone what needs to be done. Rwanda is very good at ICT and we can learn a lot in terms of making sure that we not only use our ICT for the local market but also as a service that we can export after learning from our counterparts. And if you look at issues to do with the ease of doing business, Rwanda has done very well and it is something that for us as a country we can tap into to facilitate business between the two countries. I also believe in terms of e-Governance like digitizing government systems, Rwanda has done a very good job. And as a country we can also learn from that. Private sector players raised concerns that they are key challenges still hindering the expected outcomes. Have you taken note of any? One key challenge that is there, but it can also be solved is the issue of logistics, and how we get our goods here. Some people have got goods that need to be transported by road, so they have to pass through different countries and different borders that we have no jurisdiction over. We need to make sure that in the spirit of fostering intra African trade as we come together and make sure that we promote and boost the vice for goods to also move freely and fast. Secondly, cargo is also quite key and the good thing is that we have got RwandAir. But if what happened here is anything to go by, I don’t think that the airline’s cargo space is going to be enough. So I think we should also now start to look forward and say, how best we can put up a cargo plane that can quickly get fresh produce here and at a very competitive cost. Those are things that we really need to look into. As you travel back to Zimbabwe, what are your departing words? It is true challenges are there, but we are the ones to solve them. The solution is by the people who were all in that room. Those challenges to me I view them as opportunities unless we don’t act. Talking is good, having a plan is good, but we now need to act.
