The government plans to boost exports and domestic production in a bid to protect the economy from shocks fuelled by a firming dollar, falling export revenues and a ballooning import bill.

The goal is to boost export revenues from the current Rwf594.4 billion ($720 million) to Rwf1,320.9 billion ($1.6 billion) in the next two fiscal years — a level of earnings that could reduce pressure on external reserves.

“Top priorities for increasing exports will be to diversify them, increase value addition and promote ‘Made in Rwanda’ through collaborations with the private sector,” reads the latest Budget Framework Paper. It was presented to lawmakers by Finance and Economic Planning Minister Claver Gatete, who said the target is to grow export revenues to 25 per cent.

The “Made in Rwanda” is a campaign that seeks to boost domestic production and stimulate local consumption by encouraging growth of industries that produce high quality goods for domestic use and export.

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The framework paper projects current account deficit to reduce significantly by 20.1 per cent in 2017, before increasing again in 2018 by 12.9 per cent, and then decreasing by only 3.2 per cent in 2019, based on increasing tea and mineral exports whose prices are increasing in the global commodity markets.

For agricultural crop exports, the plan is to expand tea and coffee plantations in the country, which means planting new disease and drought-resistant high yielding varieties to increase output.

Revenues for traditional export crops have been falling, with the March exports figures showing coffee, tea and pyrethrum raked in Rwf76.5 billion ($92.7 million), a drop from the Rwf83 million ($100.4 million) recorded in July 2015 to February 2016 period.

Revenue from non traditional agricultural exports grew sharply to Rwf106.3 billion ($128.8 million) from Rwf73.3 billion ($88.7 million) in the period under review.