East African Business Week

KIGALI,RWANDA - Rwanda has completed comprehensive market studies on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) agriculture  sector in a bid to export more of its fruits, vegetables, cereals and roots in major cities of Kinshasa, Goma and Bukavu.
The study conducted by Land Husbandry Water Project(LWF) under Rwanda's Agriculture Ministry highlighted the vegetables demand in Kinshasa with a population of 10 million people standing at between 350,000 to 400,000 tons annually yet a company from Belgium and another from South Africa supply about 200,000 tons.
According to LWF Consultant,Noelle Terpend, this  signifies an opportunity for Rwanda to supply  more fresh vegetables to Congolese than the ones from Belgium and South Africa, something that is sure to boost the country's foreign exchange.
Terpend added that despite that DRC is ranked last by the World Bank's doing business report 2010,it cannot be ignored because of it's huge opportunities in all fields including agriculture.
She was presenting LWF findings to Rwanda agriculture experts and exporters in Kigali last week.
She said Rwanda gets about 20 million dollars annually from DRC by supplying food stuffs.
Rwandan agriculture officials say the country's export strategy is to first concentrate on identifying markets, then produce for the markets.
Despite the fact that DRC has 80 million hectares of rich arable soil with water resources and 1000 mm of annual rainfall, the country imports almost everything including onions, tomatoes, egg plants among other vegetables.
Noel Ujeneza, a regional advisor said due to very bad roads in DRC and high air transport costs to Kinshasa, it would be better if Rwanda focuses on the Goma and Bukavu markets rather than stretch to  Kinshasa.