(LiveMint)
In the space of 24 hours, leaders of China and India—Asia’s largest and third-largest economies—will be visiting tiny Rwanda in east Central Africa spotlighting the tiny country which has Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo as its neighbours. Both President Xi Jinping of China and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India are on their first visits to Rwanda and both will be signing a clutch of pacts in Kigali in a bid to shore up ties. Xi landed in Kigali on Sunday and Modi reached the Rwandan capital. The reasons for this courtship are not difficult to fathom.
Rwanda under President Paul Kagame has left behind memories of a horrific genocide in 1994 which saw majority Hutus ethnic group target the minority Tutsis leaving hundreds of thousands dead. An article in The Economist last year said that “buoyed by better farm incomes, since 2000, Rwanda has notched up growth rates of 8% a year, making it one of the fastest-growing economies in the world (though still one of the poorest). Many talk of a “Rwandan miracle”, and look to it for lessons in development.”
The International Monetary Fund in an assessment in April said that while Africa would clock an economic growth of 3.8% in 2018, Rwanda’s economy is likely to expand at 7.2 %. Agriculture, mining and quarrying are the key economic activities. The country is one of the largest producers of tin, tantalum, and tungsten besides good quality silica sands.
