2.2.3. Rural areas towards
internal trade
Internal trade is carried out within a country. It is known as
domestic trade. The selling of food to towns by rural areas is an important
part of Rwandan internal trade. Meat, maize, fruit, and milk are produced in
rural areas and sold in towns. Bananas, beans, maize and other crops are bought
from rural farmers in areas and transported to be sold in Kigali. Similarly,
manufactured goods are bought from factories and shops in towns and sold to
rural areas in Rwanda. Internal trade is made of retailers who sell individual
items directly to consumers. Retailers include open air market traders,
roadside traders, hawkers and shopkeepers (NATHAN, K., 2010:142).
2.2.4. Strategies of
promoting internal trade
Rwanda has adopted the strategies of development of the
internal trade to make available goods and services on markets, creating a
favorable environment for integrating the informal sector into the formal
private sector, organization and management of the professionalism in
businessmen and improvement of distribution networks and optimization of the
supply of the domestic market.
The Government entered into working partnerships with private
sector operators to solve the problems that are limiting better functioning of
the private sector. Given current private sector weakness, the country has laid
strategies of encouraging professionalism in the private sector. In order for
this policy to have impact on trade, there will be workshops and meetings
oriented towards explaining it to the business community. It will be organized
in such away that all traders in their decentralized entities are trained.
The government will protect consumers of all categories
through supervision and ensuring quality products on the market, ensure the
country's supply in oil products through establishment of petroleum industry
policy, create a conducive environment for trade i.e. legal, institutional,
etc, build capacity, coordinate the action of training business people so as to
increase professionalism in their business and coordinate the program of
installing and running strategic stocks (food and oil products).
The country wishes to strengthen these activities: controlling
quality packaging, parking materials that suit international standards; funding
business community to participate in national, international trade fairs, study
tours etc, establishment of business development centers (BDC) which will
facilitate easy coordination of business activities in rural areas;
strengthening institutional framework, where there will be easy access to
finances by private sector operators; entrepreneurship development through
establishment of the new fund for young entrepreneurs; organizing regular
meetings with bankers and bank's associations in finding appropriate measures
of reducing bank interest rate and training of women and youth on professional
business (MINICOM 2006:14-15).
2.2.5. Rural trade and
development in Rwanda
2.2.5.1. Poverty in rural
areas
Poverty in Rwanda is a rural phenomenon,
as 99 per cent of the poor live in rural areas. Among household
characteristics, occupation appears to be the single most important variable
affecting the probability of being poor. Typically someone who earns a wage in
the non-farm sector has a substantially higher chance of not being poor. A self
employed non-farm worker is also much more likely to be non-poor. On the other
hand, being an agricultural worker implies a higher probability of being poor
and about 76 percent of household heads are farmers. That is why the government
encourages people who are not performing well in agriculture to shift in other
sectors of production including trade.
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