Rwanda an economically free nation, Heritage Foundation reports

Over the last 10 years, Rwanda has undertaken serious economic reforms that have made it climb doing business rankings. A recent report by Heritage Foundation ranked Rwanda the fourth economically free country in Africa after Mauritius, Botswana, and Cape Verde.

Rwanda’s overall economic freedom score stands at 64.7 per cent, making its economy the 65th most free in the world. The report pointed out that over the 20-year history of the Index, Rwanda has improved its economic freedom score by 26.4 points, the fifth-best increase of any country.

The Minister of Finance and Economic planning Claver Gatete, attributed Rwanda’s tremendous progress to the wider process of economic liberalisation which allows everyone to operate any business freely.

“We have made it easy for people to do business in Rwanda through creation of investment freedom, and fiscal freedom where we simplified the taxation policies by encouraging the use of electronic means to pay taxes,” Minister Gatete said.

Commenting on the report, the Minister of Commerce and Trade Francois Kanimba mentioned the importance of proper planning and visionary leadership as well as increasingly regional integration.

“Our internal economic governance as well as entry into regional economic initiatives like trade partnerships with our neighbors has increased our performance in terms of economic freedom,” said Minister Kanimba, adding that “several financial facilities like easy access to loans have unlocked a number of potentials within the economic sector.”

The report reads that Rwanda scored 0.6 point better than last year, reflecting improvements in the management of government spending, business freedom, and labour freedom. Rwanda is ranked 4th out of 46 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, and its score exceeds the world average.

Recording score improvements in nine out of the 10 economic freedoms,Rwanda has advanced from economic repression 20 years ago to a“moderately free” economy today, it says.

Within the East African Community, Uganda was next to Rwanda with a score of 59.9, making it the 91st freest economy in the world and 10th in the Sub-Saharan region.

Tanzania and Kenya are the 15th and 17th in the Sub-Saharan region, while Burundi is ranked 31st and comes last in the EAC.

Nonetheless, substantial challenges remain, according to the report,particularly in implementing deeper institutional and systemic reforms that are critical to strengthening the foundations of economic freedom.

UM– USEKE.RW