Rwanda: Brief History, Economy and Transportation
Rwanda is located in the east of Africa, sharing a border with four of the neighboring nations namely, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa). The country is widely known as Le pays des mille collines (French) which means the land of a thousand hills. Discussing a brief history Rwanda was under Tutsi kingship during 17th century, after World War I and II Rwanda was administered by Belgium, later after gaining independence from Belgium thousands of Rwandan refugees killed by Hutus which forced Rwandan refugees to form Rwandese Alliance for National Unity (RANU) later formed RPF to fight against the massacres and genocide ideology. The present population of Rwanda is about 12,754,987 distributed in Hutu (84%), Tutsi (15%) and Twa (1%), covering the 1,060/ square miles of African area. 94% of the population is practicing Christianity, 4.9% Islam and about while 1.4% practice other. Rwanda’s most of the population resides in rural areas adopting a simple lifestyle. Rwanda has no resources of natural land except a few for basic earnings. The country has only a few small industries to fulfill basic needs with less employment ratio. Rwanda coffee and bananas are grown on smallholding but contributed a major part in the country’s economy. Rwanda coffee remains the source of foreign currency for many years, while the brewed bananas are considered over coffee export because of the brewed banana required to involve less process resulting in long-life products. Rwanda’s government tends to turn the country into a regional trade and conference hub, while the Rwandan people are establishing friendly relations with Burundi and Uganda.
About 90% of the Rwanda population is engaged in agriculture sectors, but unfortunately, the country has a large area of barren land. However, arable land is now considered to be a great source of agriculture covering about 1.15 million hectors area. Potatoes, beans, coffee, and bananas are the basic crop exist in Rwanda and considered to increase the economic growth of the country. According to the World Bank, about 1.92 million hectors of the area are potential agriculture land. The plans are to increase development through the production of selective food crops on targeted areas increasing the portion of commercializing products. Rwanda has a limited resource of minerals; three widely exported minerals are tin, tungsten, and tantalum. About 9% of tantalum and 4% of tungsten are produced by Rwanda. The largest production of tantalum is found in Rwanda fulfilling 50% world’s need through export. Over the past decades Rwanda is also a big producer of tin ore worth US $ 42.2 million and coltan ore of worth the US $ 18.8 million.
The transportation in Rwanda is extremely unorganized, considering the country’s economic growth proper transportation system is essential for the movement of citizens targeting maximum populated areas. Rwanda trade is highly affected worldwide, the country’s economy lies in the worst condition all these factors pointed towards the poor transportation system. Rwanda economy growth remain unestablished from past few years, the government step forward to contribute to the development of the global economy using information communication and technology (ICTs) asset ICTs contribute to the education sector and aims to improve the telecommunication area for better economic growth.
Rwanda ranked 172nd place in the world’s exporters, exporting the products worth 223 billion still not enough to decrease the poverty level and raise the country’s economy. The largest exports are coffee worth $60M, tea worth $48.8M, tantalum, vanadium, and Niobium worth $39.9M and Tin ore worth $14.8M. Rwanda’s top export destinations are Uganda, the United States, Pakistan, and Kenya. The country imports the product worth about $1.11B, the biggest import is of petroleum, broadcasting equipment, wheat, raw sugar, and packaged medicament.
There was no critical deadlock between U.S and Rwanda until the government doubled the taxes on used clothes imported from the U.S as Rwanda has no source of agriculture land. High shipping cost and poor transportation are the barriers to low investments and trade. Rwanda got no proper Railway system, the transportation is done by road or air which requires the fuel imported by other countries. Rwanda uses Mombasa and Dar Es Salaam port for import and export. Sometimes the transportation got delayed, import-export duty increased, occasional incidents and many other reasons are associated with the country’s bad economy. In 2019 the deadlock was created between Uganda, which affected the country’s trade. Rwanda has the highest energy cost and rate of interest over product other than other countries of central Africa.
Most of the people reside in rural areas, manufacturing and industrial department are almost negligible. The country’s literacy rate lies below average due to which there is a lack of skilled people for the country’s development. There is no law and order for investment and trading, investors often face the issues in taxation and agreement renewal.
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