Nyaruguru district to get a cross-border trade complex

Rwanda’s Minister of Trade and Industry (MINICOM), François Kanimba, on Friday laid a foundation stone for construction activities of a cross-border trade complex to be put up at Akanyaru River border post.

The new complex will arrest informal trade among Rwanda-Burundi border communities.

“The cross-border trade complex will facilitate much more imports’ flow”, said the MINICOM boss.

The three-part cross border trade complex will comprise of a main building – also comprising of bank branches, foreign exchange bureaus and a warehouse −, hotel facilities, and a market – all of which worth 1.7 billion Rwf.

According to Nyaruguru district Mayor, François Habitegeko, the idea to have this cross-border trade complex – which is, the Mayor said, Nyaruguru district’s own initiative – fits in the broader, national plan to fix the import-export imbalance, with Rwanda still importing more than it exports.

“This cross-border trade complex will also help formalize the booming informal trade within border communities”, Mayor Habitegeko said, adding that he hopes the district’s partners will also co-operate in this project.

In 2012, a Nyaruguru-MINICOM-led study found out that the size of informal trade transactions at the Akanyaru River border post hit 1.2 billion Rwf, and Mayor Habitegeko suspects the figure could be even much higher as some of this informal trade could not be recorded.

It is still unclear when exactly this gigantic, two-phase construction project will come to an end. Mayor Habitegeko only did hint that phase one will be done before the end of next year.