BUJUMBURA July 18th (ABP) – The director of the Burundi Investment Promotion Authority (API), Mr. Leonard Sentore, held a press café in Bujumbura on Tuesday, where he presented the first-half achievements of the year 2018 and multiform support for investors who have chosen to invest in Burundi.
In the investment promotion service, the API organized from June 14 to 16th, 2018 in Bujumbura, an industrial fair. The agency has also identified and surveyed international and subregional investors as well as diaspora investors. API also started at Bujumbura International University, a university awareness campaign on entrepreneurship in Burundi. In the same area, Sentore said, delegations of government officials and investors from the Chinese, South African, Russian and Ugandan embassies were welcomed by API in Bujumbura.
Regarding registered companies, he pointed out that the latter increased from 1160 in 2017 to 1522 in 2018. As for the projection of job creation, 12400 were projected in 2018 against 10689 in 2017.
In the Investor Support and Assistance Service, API undertook visits and recommendations to contractors, including the development of studies to facilitate support and follow-up, to present their products to Burundian Bureau of Standardization and Quality Control (BBN) to have products that meet the standards in the context of the protection of buyers, but also to export their products.
The API Director reported that among the projects in the operating phase that requested the certificate of conformity, 16 projects have already invested more than 41 billion Burundian francs compared to the projected amount of nearly 60 billion, a rate of achievement of 70.25%.
Regarding job creation, Mr. Sentore said that out of 466 jobs planned, 857 were created, an achievement rate of 184%, adding that of those, 705 are reported to the National Social Security Institute (INSS), or 82%, while 200 pay payroll taxes, or 32.78%.
In the area of export promotion, Mr. Sentore said that activities have been carried out to facilitate exports, stating that API has sensitized, trained and informed exporters on the use and enforcement of regulations and laws governing trade in general and export in particular.
As for the reform and human capital development service, 20 potential young entrepreneurs were trained in drafting a banking business plan to prepare them to become wise and successful investors. In the same way, a Ministerial Ordinance set the registration fees that went from 150,000 BIF to 40,000 BIF per company. As for the regular communication campaign on API activities, Mr. Sentore said that the animation of the weekly program “Corridor of Investors” / “Umuhora w’abanyamitahe” in Kirundi was continued on radio CCIB FM +.
