By Collins MwaiFor two days, this week, Kigali hosted the second edition of the Service Investment Forum under the theme, "Rwanda to Africa: Growing Beyond Borders." The forum, which attracted over 600 delegates, provided a platform for investors to dialogue with relevant policymakers and political actors regarding specific investment interests.
It featured plenary discussions, sector specific breakout sessions, exhibition and business to business discussions focusing on priority industries, including, financial, tourism, health care, transport, logistics and retail services. The New Times' Collins Mwai spoke to Hubert Ruzibiza, the head of Service Development Department at Rwanda Development Board, to find out the status of the sector in the country. Excerpts;-
It has been said that the service sector has a potential to rake in $2.5 billion by 2018, does that add up?
The service sector has a great potential indeed. We begun with the tourism sector, which has propelled several industries such as the hotels. The other service sector that has grown in the recent past is information technology, which allowed the penetration of new players into the sector and licenses issued.
Now we want other sectors to grow, these sectors include but are not limited to financial services, healthcare, BPO (business process outsourcing) and the creative industry. What is now taking place is dialogue between operators and policy makers.
To achieve such ambitious targets, who is supposed to take the initiative in its promotion?
It has to be private sector driven, because the government cannot serve as an investor, they can however create a conducive environment for the sector to grow. The government is also involved in promotion.
Have any policies been put up to ensure the private sector is motivated to play their role?
There is the service sector review which identifies the potential of Rwanda in various sectors, it outlins the potential in tourism and ICT.
Now we have strategies for the financial sector and another on logistics and distribution. The newly-proposed investment code is another instrument that favours attraction of investments in the sector.
What is the state of service delivery in the public sector?
When you look at country branding and how the perception arises, it is by impressions created as soon as guests get into contact with Rwanda; the impression they get when they visit a Rwandan embassy anywhere in the world.
Most such services are provided by public servants and contribute to the image of the country.
For that we have had campaigns on customer service in the public sector and the government has strengthened it with the indicator being more and more public servants being able to satisfy clients.
For the private sector, there has been a lot of improvement too and big incentives. There is a direct relation to how much money is made.
Human resources was cited as the most critical factor to achieve the targets. As things stand do the implementors have enough skills and capacity?
When we do the estimation of $2.5 billion, we aggregate the value across several industries, however, one of the main issues we have in that sector is skills.
Without skills it is difficult to provide quality services in any sector. We hope that the private sector can on their own try to develop the necessary skills.
What were the intentions and outcomes of the just concluded forum?
This was the second edition of the Service Investment Forum, we had a very good outcome last year which was a wakeup call to work towards a vision.
We have a vision to transform Rwanda into a service based economy with clear targets such as GDP growth of 11.5 per cent and 200,000 off-farm jobs per year which requires going an extra mile.
The forum aimed at creating a platform for policy makers, operators and international investors so that they can discuss on the potential partnerships that can be established.
The forum also had a role to add to the efforts to promote Rwanda as an investment destinations, Rwanda is known to provide an environment suitable for investment; we are now going a greater mile to becoming an investment gateway for people willing to invest in the region and Africa in general.
The theme, "Rwanda to Africa," was built around this to show the potential in the various sectors to this effect.
Are there possibilities of Rwanda exporting services?
We are not dissociating investments from exports; to export we need to be competitive in what we are doing. It is doable; we are already doing that in areas such as tourism and the health sector, now we are looking to have other sectors develop to benefit from exports.
One of the outcomes is that the government is coming into partnership with the private sector for its continued development.
We are implementing a vision with quite ambitious targets but are ready to achieve it. It will take concerted efforts from the public and the private sectors and it is an ongoing exercise.