Rwanda: Building of Isaka-Kigali Railway to Start in December. By Emmanuel Onyango Tanzania and Rwanda have announced that the construction of the 571km-long standard gauge railway line linking Isaka township in Tanzania with the Rwandan capital, Kigali will begin this December once a contractor has been identified. The announcement was made through a joint statement by the Tanzania Minister for Works, Transport and Communication, Isaack Kamwelwe, and his Rwandan counterpart Claver Getete when the two met recently in Dar es Salaam to finalise plans of the $2.5 billion project. The ministers were accompanied by members of the Joint Technical Monitoring Committee. The two countries also agreed on the financing modalities, with Tanzania seeking a loan to fund the Isaka-Rusumo stretch and Rwanda opting for a public-private partnership model for its stretch of the line.
When completed, the railway line is expected to improve trade between the two countries by making it easy and cheaper for people and cargo to move across the common border. Drones Proving a Lifeline in Rwanda. Drones Proving a Lifeline in Rwanda December 15, 2017 Zipline drone on a launch pad at operations center in Muhanda, Rwanda. (photo:JAMES AKENA/REUTERS/Newscom There are many layers to development. Sometimes there’s a need where the solution is not at all obvious. Keller Rinaudo, Founder and CEO of Zipline, and Matthew Steckman, Chief Revenue Officer. Rwanda plans strategic import-export base in Djibouti. Rwanda's airline to start flights to London from May 26.
KIGALI, March 29 (Reuters) - Rwanda's airline will start three weekly flights to London's Gatwick airport on May 26 and it expects to exceed one million passengers on all its routes in the next three to four years, Chief Executive John Mirenge said on Monday. The London route, which will be served by two newly acquired Airbus A330s, will be East African airline RwandAir’s 22nd destination. "We see this as another way to increase tourism from Europe and UK in particular which is one of the key contributors of tourists to Rwanda," Mirenge told Reuters.
Mirenge also said the airline planned to start flights to New York, Bamako in Mali, Conakry in Guinea and Lilongwe in Malawi. It would also soon start flights to Mumbai and Guangzhou in China. "Africa is still underserved in terms of aviation services so that's why we cannot stop from growing especially on the continent," Mirenge said. Rwanda’s $38M Cable Car Project Hooks Italian Investor | KT PRESS. Cable car would make access to mount Karisimbi summit easy Rwanda has found an investor ready to implement the ambitious cable car project which was budgeted for an enormous $ 38 million three years ago.
KT Press has reliably learnt that Leitner Group, an Italian company is expected to build this luxurious technology of transport and communication at Kalisimbi volcano, the highest mountain of the country and the fourth in Africa-4,507 meters (14,787 ft) above the sea level by 2017. In terms of altitudes the Rwandan cable car infrastructure will be the first in Africa to be placed in the highest level, and the second, worldwide. The Karismbi cable car project, second on the continent after Cape Town cable car-South Africa was stalled in 2013 when Rwanda couldn’t get an investor to implement it. Rwanda’s Minister for Youth and ICT Jean Philbert Nsengimana was among those who didn’t give up.
It will include facilities at three levels: The summit, the crater and the base. Rwanda: Egyptian Aviation Academy Expresses Interest in Rwanda. By Leonard Tuyisenge The Egyptian Aviation Academy (EAA) has expressed interest in opening a branch in Rwanda in order to assist the region whenever necessary. This was revealed this week when Rwanda's Ambassador to Egypt, Sheikh Saleh Habimana, visited the academy. He was accompanied by his Egyptian counterpart, Namira Negm to assess how the school can start enrolling Rwandan nationals and held talks with the Director of the Academy, Captain Elias Sadek, and other personalities. In an interview with the New Times, Ambassador Habimana said that the aim of his visit was to devise ways and means in which the two countries could work together to ensure that Rwandans start training at the academy.
He said the school was very advanced technologically and was ready to consider admitting Rwandan students, as soon as the two countries come to a mutual agreement. Saleh added that EAA was ready to forge a partnership with the Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority. Others are: Airport Engineering/Mang. Rwanda Air premium Economy Class - a first for Africa. Morocco's national carrier to start direct flights between Kigali and Casablanca.
Royal Air Maroc, the Morocco national carrier, will start direct flights between Casablanca and Kigali in March, Abdelilah Benryane, the envoy of the Kingdom of Morroco resident in Nairobi, said last week. He said Rwandan and Moroccan aviation authorities are working together to finalise the necessary paperwork so that the airline starts flights as planned. The entry of Royal Air Maroc Express will bring the number of commercial airlines that serve Kigali International Airport to 12, including RwandAir, Kenya Airlines, Qatar, Fly Dubai, Turkish Airlines, Ethiopia Airlines and KLM, among others. The North African airline’s entry will increase competition in the regional aviation industry, observers say. However, the development is a boost to government’s efforts geared at transforming Kigali into an aviation hub in the region, according to the Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority (RCAA) officials.
There are currently ongoing works to expand the airports runway. business@newtimes.co.rw. Start-up snapshot: Uber for motorcycle taxis in Rwanda. SafeMotos is a Rwanda-based start-up that connects customers with motorcycle taxis. The Uber-influenced smartphone app focuses on safety and uses data to measure a driver’s accident risk. Customers are linked to a safer motorcycle taxi driver for a premium fee, of which SafeMotos collects a 13% commission. SafeMotos was co-founded by Canadian Barrett Nash and Kenyan Peter Kariuki. Nash tells How we made it in Africa about the opportunity for safely driven motorcycles, the risks in the market and why his business doesn’t need US$1m right now. Below are edited excerpts. 1. SafeMotos is an Uber-styled motorcycle hailing app, but with a focus on safety. We then connect our customers to drivers who are the safest, based on their driving habits.
The idea of SafeMotos first came into my mind when my mother came to Rwanda to visit me in April last year. Customers using SafeMotos benefit by being connected to a driver who has been pre-tested. 2. 3. Right now money isn’t our bottleneck. 4. 5. Kigali city opens new bus terminal. KIGALI CITY NEW PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM. The most from the coast. KIGALI (Xinhua) -- Rwandan traders are excited about the plans by the government to construct an inland clearing port in Masaka, Kicukiro district, in the city suburb of capital, Kigali. Rwanda government on Tuesday announced plans to put in place a new Kigali Logistics Platform, a port that seeks to improve the country’s import and export fortunes. The land locked small East African country’s new port will replace the current Gikondo-based Magasins Generaux de Rwanda (Magerwa) which private sector says is small considering the growing number of imports.
"This is a very big opportunity for us because we shall use the port to expand our business, because the previous one (Magerwa) was too small to accommodate our stock," said Jean Marie Kabera, an importer of used cars. Kabera told Xinhua on Wednesday that business is already booming in Rwanda and Magerwa had become a challenge to them as it creates a lot of traffic of the heavy-loaded trucks crossing through the city.
The Switzerland of Africa | Transport World Africa. From landlocked to land-linked – Rwanda is striving to become the regional trade hub by capitalising on its location between East, West and Central Africa to serve its neighbours. In its bid to become the ‘Switzerland of Africa,’ the country has set aside a 50-acre site for parking, warehousing, infrastructure and dry docking. Francois Kanimba, Rwandan Minister of Trade and Industry says, “Rwanda should be the centre where industries could be based to distribute their goods in all our neighbouring countries.” “We are looking at potential investors to help us develop a Trade and Logistics Hub on a 50-hectare site that can handle containers to and from neighbouring countries, with huge parking, major warehousing, infrastructure and dry docking to cut the costs of doing regional business.”
Rwanda’s plan envisages a “dry port” linking East with West Africa, where bulk cargo could be offloaded, warehoused, and re-exported. East Africa’s transport costs are among the highest in the world. Rwanda: RwandAir Express starts flight to Cameroon. Rwandair to launch Kigali-Dar-Bombay flights. RwandAir will soon introduce the Kigali-Dar es Salaam-Bombay flight following high demand for the service by customers interested to travel to the Asian country.
The Rwandair Country Manager, Mr Hafeez Balogun, told a news conference in Dar es Salaam late Tuesday that the route would be the first one out of Africa. He said so far the airline covers about 14 countries on the African continent. “So far, Rwandair service covers only 14 countries including all the East African countries,” said the country manager during a meeting with the country based flight agencies. The Rwandair recently increased frequencies to Dubai, introducing a daily flight. According to Rwandair Station Manager, Mr Mathew Kichao, the company was expecting to get two more brand new aircraft to join the fleet this month to expand the firm’s operations. Currently, from Kigali International Airport, RwandAir offers connections to Nairobi, Entebbe, Kilimanjaro, Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Mwanza and Bujumbura. Turkish Airline begins Rwanda flights.