Rwanda’s economy registered 6.9% growth in 2015 (RwF 5,837 billion up from RwF 5,395 billion in 2014) according to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers released by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) last week. 

The 2015 growth is slightly lower than the 7% registered in 2014.

“In agriculture, food crop growth was 4% in 2015 down from 6% during 2014, especially due to vegetables and fruits that dropped by -6.3%. Export crops grew by 13%, mainly boosted by coffee whose output increased by about 11%. However, output for tea dropped by -4%,” Yusuf Murangwa, the Director General of NISR said.

GDP is the monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country in a specific time period.

Announcing the growth figures, Yusuf Murangwa, the Director General of NISR said services and industry grew by 7% respectively while Agriculture registered 5% growth.

He said services continue to lead in terms of shares to GDP with 47% compared to 33% and 14% for agriculture and industry respectively.

Industry growth was mainly due to a 10% growth in construction. However, mining and quarrying dropped by -9% as value and quantity of cassiterite, coltan and wolfram dropped. Information and communication grew by 16% mainly boosted by information technology that grew by 28% while printing services dropped by -17%.

Reacting to the negative growth in the mining sector, the finance minister, Amb. Claver Gatete attributed the poor performance to the fall in commodity prices on the international market. 

He however noted that government was working on value addition to its minerals so as to fetch better foreign exchange.

On the agriculture sector performance, Gatete stressed the government was working on increasing the absorption capacity of all the programs it has initiated to boost growth.

“We may not have control over weather but we are supporting the sector through irrigation, fertilizer subsidies, post-harvest management and strengthening linkages between agriculture, markets and industries all of which will positively impact growth in the sector,” Gatete said.

The fourth integrated household living conditions survey (EICV4) indicates that, agriculture is growing at twice the pace of the population which according to Mr. Murangwa is a positive trend.