Minister of Agriculture and Animal Ressources , Dr G Mukeshimana, yesterday opened Su-Saharan African Conference on Poulty with more than 2100 participants. Read his speech below:
1. I am pleased to welcome you back to the Poultry Africa 2022 Expo and Conference in Kigali. I thank the organizers and their partners for having chosen Rwanda to host this very important event for the third time with the last one being in October 2019. The people and the Government of Rwanda are honored to be your host.
2. This event should have occurred in 2021 but the restrictions because of the Pandemic of COVID-19 this event had to be postponed for this year. The COVID-19 pandemic had affected negatively the poultry industry in Rwanda due to its effects on tourism and hospitality industry.
3. I am therefore happy that we are now back into business.
4. Poultry Africa 2022 has brought together poultry industry stakeholders across the entire value chains from: farmers, processors, food ingredients manufacturers, poultry products distributors, packaging equipment manufacturers, manufacturers and distributors of equipment used in poultry production as well as scientists to network and do business with other actors from around the world.
5. I therefore urge the Rwanda poultry business owners to take advantage of the presence of the captains of this industry, to establish lasting business partnerships to improve your respective poultry operations.
6. To those that wish to start engaging in various poultry value chain business, this is your time.
7. There will also be technical best practices seminars planned today and tomorrow with industry experts who will be sharing their knowledge and experiences on recent technological developments. I encourage participants to take full advantage of this.
8. The Poultry business is a growing agricultural sub-sector in Africa and it is expected to continue to grow as demand for meat and eggs continue to grow due to the demographic pressure, rising incomes and urbanization.
9. The vision of the poultry industry in Rwanda is to transform the largely substance poultry farming to a more knowledge intensive and market oriented poultry farming.
10. During the last Poultry Africa 2019, Rwanda had 15 large commercial poultry farmers, 108 medium and 222 small commercial poultry farmers. Since then, the country has grown to have: 27 large commercial poultry farmers, 258 medium poultry farmers, and 265 small commercial poultry farmers.
11. Five years ago, the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources produced a Livestock Master Plan that identified poultry as one of the avenues to contribute to national food security, nutrition security, income generation and job creation. The Master plan projected an increase of 124% in chicken meat and 110% in egg production to 2023.
12. The master plan highlights the areas where the private sector is needed and where the public sector needs to strengthen
13. There is much that still needs to be done in the poultry sector. We need to grow more businesses in the poultry value chains to enhance the profitability, create jobs, and attract a wider range of consumers.
14. With traditional feed prices on the rise, more research is needed to formulate alternative source of feed based on locally available and easily accessible components.
15. The Government of Rwanda carried out various reforms that have made it much easier to start businesses in Rwanda. Among the top reforms include the revision of its Investment code that has different fiscal and non-fiscal investment incentives, a one – stop center that facilitates business registration process which is done in less than 6 hours, taxation reforms, easy privatization process, and a comprehensive PPP law.
16. With respect to the poultry sector, the Government offers incentives to boost production where agricultural inputs and unprocessed raw materials produced and imported duty free in addition to animal feed producers being exempted from paying Value Added Tax.
17. The “Manufacture and Build to Recover Program (MBRP) was set up by the government of Rwanda to fast-track private sector investments and boost economic recovery efforts with specific incentives and key performance indicators. Agro-processing sector eligible for incentives where total investment is USD 100,000 or greater.
18. I want to encourage stakeholders in the poultry industry to take advantage of the favorable investment climate offered by our Country to invest in Rwanda.
19. I am looking forward to business deals being concluded at different levels of the poultry value chain.
20. Last but not least, I want to encourage participants especially those coming to Rwanda for the first time to spend some time after the conference and visit different touristic sites of our Country.
21. Once again, let me thank the organizers, the speakers, the exhibitors, the media and everyone that is making this Poultry Africa 2022 a memorable poultry event.
22. On behalf of the Government of Rwanda, I officially declare the Poultry Africa 2022 Expo and Conference officially open and wish everyone a pleasant stay in Kigali. (End)