ICPE ADG Mr Janez Podobnik met The Ambassador of Rwanda, H.E. Ms. Immaculee Uwanyiligira

On Tuesday, 4 September 2012, ICPE ADG Mr Janez Podobnik had a successful meeting with The Ambassador of Rwanda, H.E. Ms. Immaculee Uwanyiligira. The meeting was a follow-up of the past two meetings that Madame Ambassador already had with ICPE. The main purpose was to discuss the concrete projects between Rwanda and ICPE. Rwanda had already participated at the Africa Day event which ICPE organised in cooperation with the Club of Former Slovenian Ambassadors in June 2012.

ADG ICPE briefed Madame Ambassador about the ICPE current and future activities, such as short-term trainings and invited her country to participate at the ICPE-KEN International Conference on Benefits and Challenges of Public-Private Partnerships for Improving Energy Efficiency on 24 October 2012 in Ljubljana.

Madame Ambassador presented the Rwanda Vision 2020 which is very ambitious, with a 5-year control periods to evaluate the progress of implementation of various programmes and projects that Rwanda has been undertaking. The focus is given on the following core sectors where ICPE could get involved with the concrete projects:

Madame Ambassador proudly noted that Rwanda was proclaimed the best reformer of the year for the last three consecutive years by the World Bank in its Doing Business Report. This means that most of the barriers for the potential investors have been removed. Besides, Rwanda was reported by the Economist Magazine to be one the ten fastest growing economies in the world (six of which are in Africa). Rwanda’s commitment to zero tolerance on corruption has also been recognized by corruption watchdog Transparency International, which has declared Rwanda to have negligible corruption. Together with a multitude of investment opportunities, these combined factors render Rwanda an attractive investment destination.

Madame Ambassador and ADG ICPE had agreed on several mutual activities in the near future, among them a possibility of the investment seminar/Slovenia-Rwanda business day (MFA RS and Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia), possible ICPE participation at the UNIDO event in Ghana end of October/beginning of November with a visit to Rwanda and Angola and Rwanda participating at ICPE-KEN international conference in October 2012.