Economic Outline

Economic Indicators

For the latest updates on the key economic responses from governments to address the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, please consult the IMF's policy tracking platform Policy Responses to COVID-19.

Rwanda registered a good economic performance over the last years, and thanks to investments in education and infrastructure, it reached the Millennium development goals. In 2022, the economy continued to show signs of recovery from the recession brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, with GDP growing an estimated 6%, thanks to the service sector and the measures taken to fight back the coronavirus. Growth is expected to continue in 2023 and 2024, when GDP should grow by 6.7% and 7%, respectively.

In 2022, inflation significantly increased to 9.5%, but it is expected to decrease to 8% in 2023 and 5% in 2024. The debt-to-GDP ratio increased to 68.1% in 2022, and it is expected to continue to rise in the coming years, reaching 68.6% in 2023 and 69.4% in 2024. The country's current account deficit also increased in 2022, reaching 12.6%, but it should decrease to 11.7% in 2023 and 10.3% in 2024. With over 70% of the population employed in agriculture, household incomes benefited from the favourable prices of export crops in 2022, which resulted in higher household expenditure. Public investment, through the national strategic transformation plan (NST), targeted infrastructures related to trade such as the construction of the airport of Bugesera, to help the restart of the economy. The NST focuses on economic, social and governance transformation, according to the aspirations of the plan Vision 2050. As part of the latter, the government is developing new medium-term development strategies aimed at turning the country in a country with intermediate high income status before 2035, while the “Made in Rwanda” program aims to promote local production in order to reduce imports.

Despite the progress made, Rwanda remains a very poor country, where around 40% of the population lives below the national poverty line. In 2022, the unemployment rate in the country was at 24.3%, according to the government's Labour Force Survey, and increase from the previous year, when that rate stood at 23.5%

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