Some traders told the media that it is difficult to get dollars. If you need it fast, you’re going to give it to him and he can cut you another dollar to make a profit and you won’t give it to him because you see your job dying.
For them this is a problem because you are exceeding the price set by the Central Bank of Rwanda.
Someone told the RBA that the risk is high because he is trading cheap and bankrupt because he continues to trade at the normal rate and he ended up with an expensive US dollar.
He asks people who have dollars to release them, and they are available because it would help the economy to work, and people would have those to spend.
So this allows the trader to withdraw a lot of money every day, which is between $30,000 and $50,000 because they don’t give it right away.
It takes a lot of collecting and picking it up once.
Nyirinkwaya says that it is difficult because even in the dollar trading rooms (Forex Bureau, Maison d’echange) they give you a small amount and send it to the trader.
He gives the solution that it will be done in the Bank where the traders have accounts because the one who wants it will go to the bank and they will immediately send it to his account (transfer) without asking them to collect it and hand it to him.
What BNR assures traders about the dollar shortage…
The governor of the Central Bank of Rwanda, John Rwangomba, says that they doubled the amount of dollars they were putting in the market.
He says that what they did was to advocate for dollar traders because the people needed more than what was available.
BNR used to sell Banks $5 million per week but is now said to be selling $10 million per week.
Rwangomba says that this has also caused the rate of loss of value of the Rwandan currency to decrease and that they can see this decrease in numbers.
He says that in 2024 traders looking for more dollars will find it, unlike in 2023.
Another thing that John Rwangomba says has caused the value of the Rwandan currency to lose is that its imports have continued to increase compared to its exports.
He said, “In the same segment related to international trade, if you look at our exports for the whole year of 2023, it has increased by only 1.7% and our imports have increased by 6.8%. This has caused the gap between our exports and imports to increase by 10%, thus affecting the foreign exchange market in the country.”
The governor of the Central Bank of Rwanda says that the gap increased when the dollar ($) continued to weaken against all international currencies, which made the Rwandan currency (Frw) worth 18.05% in 2023.
However, this is decreasing according to the statistics so far