MP Théogène Munyangeyo, Chairperson of the Committee, said that agriculture received only 1.5 per cent of the total loans provided by commercial banks in Rwanda in the 2018/2019 financial year.
"We cannot expect fostered development when a sector which employs for about 70 per cent of the population only gets 1.5 percent of loans offered in the country [by commercial banks]," he said.
MP Munyangeyo pointed out that the agriculture sector accounted for 13.3 per cent of long-term loans from BRD, while 59 per cent of them went to financing infrastructures, and 16.1 percent was channelled to energy projects.
Munyangeyo said that the agriculture sector is important to the country's economy as the 2018/2019 activity report by the central bank indicated that the sector contributed 29 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Munyangeyo said that during the discussions between the Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, it was indicated that the livestock sector has potential to increase output than agriculture (crop value chain) as the former registered an average growth of 14 percent in the last four years compared to the latter which grew by 4.6 percent in the fiscal year 2018/2019.
