Rwanda looks to tap into Chinese market through import expo

KIGALI - Rwanda eyes China as a "very important" export market and expects to introduce Rwandan products to Chinese consumers through the first China International Import Expo (CIIE), CEO of Rwanda Development Board Clare Akamanzi said Wednesday.

"China is a very important export market we are looking at right now and the fact that we signed a partnership with Alibaba now confirms that China is a very important priority market for us today," Akamanzi said at a media briefing after the launching ceremony of Alibaba's Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP), which makes Rwanda the first African country that launches this platform.

The eWTP initiative was proposed by Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba Group, in 2016. It aims to promote public-private dialogue to foster a more effective and efficient policy and business environment to enable small and medium-sized enterprises to participate in cross-border electronic trade.

The first thing that Rwanda has to achieve is to make sure that Chinese consumers know the central African country, she said, noting that Rwanda sees the CIIE as a platform where it can present Chinese consumers with Rwandan products.

"We are going to use all platforms possible including trade expos in China and other local platforms to promote Rwanda products to the Chinese market," she added.

The CIIE, China's first-ever fair of this kind scheduled for Nov 5-10 in Shanghai, is China's latest move to promote trade liberalization and further open up its market.