Background to Business in Rwanda

After the tragic history of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi which left the country completely destroyed, the last 25 years has seen the current government do tremendous work to rebuild the country and boost the economy. And now according to the 2019 World Bank Doing Business index of the world’s most business-friendly economies, Rwanda is the 29th easiest place to do business in the world – being the only Low-Income Country (LIC) in the Top 30.

It only takes 6 hours to register your business in Rwanda and you can find all the services that you need to complete your registration in one building, the Rwanda Development Board. salaries are competitive and there is easy access to employees compared to many other African countries.

Startup co-working spaces are becoming very popular in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda, where you can get a desk at a reasonable price and benefit from the work ecosystem. However, despite all these obvious facilities, it does not mean doing business in Rwanda has no challenges and the biggest challenge that western people face managing Rwandan teams and clients are cultural differences.

Author

This country-specific business culture profile was written by Keith Warburton who is the founder of the cultural awareness training consultancy Global Business Culture. 

Global Business culture is a leading training provider in the fields of cross-cultural communication and global virtual team working.  We provide training to global corporations in live classroom-based formats, through webinars and also through our cultural awareness digital learning hub, Global Business Compass.

This World Business Culture profile is designed as an introduction to business culture in Rwanda only and a more detailed understanding needs a more in-depth exploration which we can provide through our training and consultancy services.