By David Himbara
Rwandan officials are saying that the economy grew by 7.4% and that agriculture, the backbone, grew by 5% in the 1st Quarter of 2014.
Here is my problem.
It so happened that the other day I was looking at Rwanda’s agricultural exports in the 1st Quarter of 2014.
As you see in the attached data from the National Bank of Rwanda, performance in agriculture export in the 1st Quarter 2014 was disaster compared to same period in 2013.
In the case of coffee, exports plummeted by 56.7% from US$11.5million in 1st Q2013 to US$5million 1st Q2014.
The decline in tea exports was less dramatic but still significant; tea exports declined by 16.7% from US$16mil in 1st Q2013 to US$13.9mil in 1st Q2014.
Somebody help me. Economic growth is normally defined as (1) increase in productive capacity and (2) improved lives. So these two aspects were not affected by 56.7% decline in coffee exports and 16.7% in tea exports in 1st Q2014? Or put in another way, there was no relationship between the massive decline in agriculture exports and economic performance? Puzzled I truly am.  |
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