The Minister of Finance, Uzziel Ndagijimana and the Chinese Ambassador to Rwanda Wang Xuekun, on Monday met and discussed different areas of development cooperation between the two countries, and also signed an agreement for China to cancel an interest-free loan of 50 million RMB Yuan (approx. US$7million) to Rwanda. The said interest-free loan was used to construct 6.36km Masaka- Kabuga road under the Kigali Urban Road Upgrading Project. The move is part of the Chinese Government's decision to cancel outstanding interest-free loans in accordance with the Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Rwanda and the Government of the People’s Republic of China. Ndagijimana acknowledged the strong economic cooperation between the two countries which has seen Rwanda benefit from China’s support to various sectors of the economy including infrastructure, energy, education and health among others. “The two countries enjoy a healthy bilateral cooperation. This is evidenced by substantial contribution of the Republic of China towards Rwanda’s development aspirations. The agreement we signed today cements this relationship.,” Ndagijimana said. Ambassador Wang said, “The friendship of China-Rwanda is higher than mountains. The protocol signed today is one of the important outcomes of China to implement a series of cooperation with Africa announced by President Xi Jinping in the 8th Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. China hopes, by offering this financial support, to make a contribution to Rwanda's all-round transformation and recovery from the malign impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the future, China will work with Rwanda for deeper practical cooperation in various fields under the Belt and Road Initiative framework to deliver more benefits to the two peoples.”.
