DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-RWANDA: Courting Europe With Flowers

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jean Baptiste Kayigamba

KIGALI, May 2 1998 (IPS) - Rwanda plans to fly flowers to Europe as part of plans to diversify its exports away from the traditional tea and coffee and thus boost an economy struggling to recover from war and genocide in 1994.

“By the end of 1998, Rwandan flowers and fruits will be hitting the European market,” ‘The New Times’, a Kigali-based English-language weekly, noted recently.

The weekly added that Israeli national Ilan Ronen — an internationally renowned exporter — was going to be a key player in promoting the export of Rwanda’s greens and flowers. Ronen, a professional farmer who for the last 27 years has specialised in exporting such products, is now based in Eritrea.

Thusfar, Rwanda has exported only small amounts of non- traditional products such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, potatoes, textiles, skins and fish, according to Thacien Ndolimana, director of external trade in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry here.

The main markets for Rwanda’s non-traditional exports are Holland, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland, he says.

The new thrust took shape after Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu invited Ronen to Rwanda when he visited Eritrea in early February. The businessman arrived here in March, and struck a deal with Rwandans involved in the export of farm products. Under the agreement, he promised to help them solve some of their technical problems relating to cooling, shipping, packaging and farming. In this connecton, he opened a new investment line that reportedly still is in the embryonic stage.

According to Evase Nsengimana of e Rwandese Exporters Assocation, the local agriculture sector does, in fact, need help to feed the export market. “Our local farmers are not export- oriented, so it has been costly for ordinary exporters to process their products in order to have export quality,” he explains.

Ronen promised to help exporters to obtain second-hand cooling containers from Israel for around 6,000 US dollars each. The coolers, which are powered by electricity, can reportedly be used for storing fertilizers, seeds, flowers and fruits before they are shipped out.

Ronen also promised to do the necessary marketing, and provide the technical know-how for product quality and storage service when shipments reach Europe. The prospect of increased sales has already aroused some enthusiasm in the local flower and horticulture sector.

“We used to import natural flowers from Uganda for the local market and export,” says Ancilla Nyiransengimana, who runs a flower shop in Kigali, “but with the new market attraction, we have already started to organise farmers up country to grow on a large scale.”

Nyirasengimana says she has already organised about 10 farmers flowers. Until now, the flower and horticultural sector has been neglected and relegated to the scale of gardening and vending. In fact, Rwanda’s exports as a whole have been lo in recent years.

Coffee and tea have remained the principal export products, accounting for over 90 percent of national export revenue, according to World Bank figures. However, coffee production has fallen from 42,000 tonnes in 1987 to 14,500 tonnes in 1997. As a result, the country has a negative balance of trade.

According to Ndolimana, imports have kept on outpacing exports since the 1980s, avergin 250,000,000 U.S. dollarsper year, while annual exports amount to about 65,000,000 U.S. dollars.

Now, however, there is hope that, starting with flowers and vegetables, the non-traditional sector might help reduce the gap somewhat.