East African Business Week

KIGALI, RWANDA - Rwanda's receipts from mineral exports more than tripled in the first quarter this year benefiting from high prices and increased stock.
This increases chances for the landlocked East African country to meet the US$100 million target for this year, thus easing its wider trade deficit.
Rwanda continues to import a lot and exports little which is a potential risk to the country's financial position.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that increased export revenue could narrow down the trade deficit thus increasing Rwanda's capacity to store huge foreign reserves.
Government statistics show that from January to March 2011, receipts from cassiterite, coltan and wolframite grew by 238.2% to US$35.4 million from $10.5 million in the same period last year.
At the same time, traded volume of the three minerals more than doubled.
The combined volume of cassiterite, coltan and wolframite rose by 110.9% to 1,900,155 Kilogrammes (kgs) from 901,234 kgs.
The increase in receipts and volumes was mainly driven by stable prices for all the three minerals.
Cassiterite saw a dramatic increase in volume but its price kept fluctuating.
Between January and February 2011, the price of cassiterite rose from $15.16 to $16.96 respectively and fell to $16.01 a kilo in March.
Coltan fetched the highest price in February at $41.08 a kilo from$31.67 in January and fell to $31.88 a kilo in March.
Wolframite's price witnessed a steady rise from $10.46 in January, $11.38 in February and $12.05 in March.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Forestry and Mining, Mr. Christopher Bazivamo, said the increase in volume is linked to Dodd-Frank Act, a US law that seeks to freeze trading of minerals from conflict areas.
The law, which has already been passed, requires the US companies that import minerals to trace their origin or face sanctions.
Targeted minerals include those from the Great Lakes region of Africa including Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The law seeks to stop the so-called conflict minerals from funding wars especially in Eastern DR Congo.
The US had set a deadline of April 1, 2011 for these countries to have their minerals fully tagged. Rwanda failed to meet the deadline but the Minister said about 95% of the requirements has been met.
Mr. Bazivamo said that more than 80% of companies in the mining sector have been covered.
He is optimistic that the country will meet all the requirements.