{The new Nakumatt Kagugu Supermarket covering a shop floor space of more than 5,000square feet and located at Merez Centre Kagugu now pushes the retailer’s branch footprint in Rwanda to 3 branches.}

Speaking when he confirmed the opening of the new Nakumatt Kagugu, Nakumatt Holdings Managing Director, Atul Shah reiterated the firm’s commitment to further deepen the value of the regional formal retail trade.

Deepening of the regional formal retail trade space through branch expansions and stocking of commodities sourced from the region, Shah said, will play a key role in fostering meaningful regional integration.

From Rwanda into Kenya, Nakumatt, he said is considering the regional importation of popular products such as Arabica Coffee, Macadamia Oil and the Akabanga hot Chili sauce, Sabana chili sauce and Nyungwe honey.

Such unique Rwanda produced products will be stocked in Nakumatt branches in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Similar initiatives will be undertaken to ensure the stocking of unique products from other East African countries within the Nakumatt network.

“For us at Nakumatt, we are restructuring the business to continue playing a pivotal role in the regional retail space by providing a market platform across the region for local produce,” Shah assured.

Nakumatt opened its first Supermarket (Nakumatt UTC) in Rwanda in 2008 followed by a Hypermarket outlet (Nakumatt KTC) in 2011 and has continued to enjoy steady growth in the fast developing nation.

The National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) reported a growth of 7.3 per cent in the first quarter before slowing down to 5.4 per cent in the second quarter of 2016.

This performance in both Q1 and Q2 was driven by high growth in the industrial sector of 10 per cent, and services and agriculture sectors, which grew by 7 per cent each.

The World Bank had, at the beginning of the year, projected the country’s economy to grow by 6.8 per cent this year, and rebound in 2017 to 7.2 percent.

Rwanda has also continued to show business attraction progress and is now ranked at 56th position out of 190 countries in the Ease of Doing Business in the 2017 rankings.

Rwanda was the 2nd easiest place to do business coming 7 positions closer to Mauritius, ranking on the first spot in Africa and 49th globally.

With the opening of its 64th branch in Kigali, Rwanda, Nakumatt now has a branch complement of 47branches in Kenya, 3 in Rwanda, 5 in Tanzania and 9 in Uganda.

The new Nakumatt Kagugu Supermarket covering a shop floor space of more than 5,000square feet and located at Merez Centre Kagugu now pushes the retailer’s branch footprint in Rwanda to 3 branches