In 2018, Siemens announced it was considering investing in the Rwandan market and that it had mapped out areas of interest.
This German multinational is the largest industrial manufacturing company across Europe. It also has departments dedicated to investing in African regions.
Four years later, Sabine Dall’Omo the Siemens CEO of Southern and Eastern Africa, on Monday October 10, 2021 led a delegation to Rwanda to discuss potential partnership and investment opportunities.
According to Rwanda Development Board, the Siemens team held discussions with government officials and RDB staff.
This contact between Rwanda and Siemens comes at a time the East African country is mobilising for establishment of a standard Guage railway linking the country to the neighboring countries of Tanzania and Uganda.
Rwanda also has an ambitious futuristic project of introducing Unmanned aerial cable car system in the capital Kigali. For Siemens this could be an opportunity worth tapping into owing to its experience in Automation and Metro Projects.
Another opportunity on offer is enery generation, and transmission. Rwanda needs targets to increase its generation capacity to 556MW by 2024 from the current 235.6MW. The current access to electricity is at 66% but the country’s target is 100% in 2024. Such ambitious targets require courting industry experts like Siemens.
Siemens has revealed that some of its activities coming up in Rwanda include vaccine production and technology transfer for Bugesera International Airport.
In January 2018, Siemens was in Rwanda and had conducted an investment exploration of the opportunities and viability of the market and had announced that they were looking to have deliberations with the government seeking a commitment on working together.
However, Siemens like most european firms pursue investiment models that make it expensive for host countries yet China, India and other asian firms could offer the same at affordable costs.
“Our main focus as a firm is delivering quality as opposed to be being cheap and reducing cost,” said Andre Bouffioux, the Chief Executive of Siemens for Belgium, and West and Central Africa.
