Promoting industrialisation in Rwanda: Five ideas and twelve policy actions

Policy brief 5 Feb 2019 Firms

Authors

To attain middle-income status by 2035, Rwanda will have to accelerate the growth of its industrial sector – and maintain double digit annual growth in exports for coming decades. An active industrial policy can help.
Industrial policy spans policy domains well beyond the normal purview of a normal commerce and trade ministry. Policy instruments include public investment, tax incentives, technology policy, and investment and export promotion, among others. Coordinating these instruments to produce synergies is the challenge.
This note points to five ideas that are central to realising this objective:
- Promoting industry requires promoting exports.
- Incentives to investment need to be targeted to be efficient.
- Industrialisation requires diversification, value addition and quality up grading.
- Efficient services are critical for industrialisation
- Industrial policy requires cabinet- level involvement.
The government is already working on many of these ideas, so in each of these areas this note suggests specific options for action that may merit discussion.