Doing business 2014 Rwanda Kenya Uganda Burundi Tanzania
Starting a business 9 134 151 27 119
Dealing with construction permits 85 47 143 126 177
Registering property 8 163 126 52 146
Getting credit 13 13 42 170 130
Protecting investors 22 98 115 34 98
Paying taxes 22 166 98 143 141
Trading across borders 162 156 164 175 139
Enforcing contracts 40 151 117 177 42
Ranking out of 183 economies: 1= best and 189 is the worst performer.
Source: World bank (2014).
The lack of access to investment capital was also mentioned by the Policy Officer Trade Promotion and
Bilateral Economic Cooperation of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, as being a major
bottleneck for private sector involvement in agriculture, including aquaculture. Banks are reluctant
with the provision of loans, which is partly caused by the inability to make a proper risk assessment of
the project concerned due to a lack of aquaculture expertise at the banks.
3.5.6 Socio-economic potential
In Tanzania the market potential for fish is high. This is mainly due to the Tanzanian fast growing
population and increased buying power. When it comes to market differentiation, three main segments
can be distinguished: low income, middle income and high income. The low income group prefers
imported mackerel (per piece), small-sized whole fish or small portions of a larger fish. This allows
them to buy one fish or piece for each family member. The middle-income group prefer small to
medium-sized whole fish, while the high-income group prefer big fish, often purchased at restaurants
or high end butcheries. The market prices of tilapia will follow wild-caught tilapia prices of the Lakes:
around TSH4,000/kg (€1.77) for the farmer and TSH1,000-2,000/kg for the middle men. This is more
than tilapia prices in Egypt, the largest market in Africa, where farmers get €1.40-1.50/kg tilapia.
Large aquaculture farms will be able to bypass the middleman and to distribute directly to make a
higher profit.
Tanzania has most of the key ingredients for fish feed available in the country. In Kenya production of
fish feed costs around €0.90 per kg fish, where it is expected that in Tanzania production will cost
around the same. Feed cost make up around 65% of the total production cost, which make the total
production costs around €1.39/kg. The above mentioned costs and revenues show a positive economic
potential to produce tilapia in Tanzania.
3.5.7 Conclusions
• Current status of aquaculture in Tanzania is modest with a production of approximately 3600
MT/year.
• Natural resources (water, land, climate) are sufficiently available and suitable for aquaculture
development.
• On the input side, quality seeds/fingerlings and feeds, and access to investment capital are the
major constraints.
• The demand for tilapia is high and will continue to grow in the coming decade as a result of
population growth, increased buying power and popularity of tilapia.
• Although real prices of tilapia have declined, it is expected that future price development will be
positive due to a strong increasing in demand
• Based on current market prices and feed costs, tilapia aquaculture is a profitable business
• Cage culture of tilapia in Lake Victoria (and possibly other lakes) has the biggest potential
• Several investors are waiting to start cage farming following the successful example of SON in
Uganda. However, completion of the decision making processes for the issuing of cage licences will
require probably one more year.
• A realistic scenario for the coming 5 years is the production of 1000 to 2000 MT in cages in the
Tanzanian part of Lake Victoria and other lakes and reservoirs.
• The major risks for this development scenario are the poor business environment and lack of access
to investment- and operational capital.
4 Rwanda
4.1 Macro context
4.1.1 Protein consumption
Figure 12 shows the average total protein intake for Eastern Africa and Rwanda projected against the
world consumption between 2009 and 2011. Rwanda’s animal protein consumption is lower than the
East African average. With 5.3 grams/capita/day, the animal protein intake is only 10 per cent of total
protein intake. Eleven per cent of this total protein intake Rwanda derives from fish and seafood (<1.0
gram/capita/day). Measured in kilograms, the Rwandan average is three times less than the
Tanzanian average (1.9 kg fish and seafood/capita/year between 2009 and 2011).
Figure 12 Average protein intake (2009-2011) in gram per capita per day.
Source: FAOSTAT (2014).
4.1.2 Fish production
Figure 13 shows the fish production in Rwanda for the years 2001-2013. There was a rather stagnant
fish production before the PAIGELAC project started in 2006. This project realised a substantial
production growth. In 2013 the fish production had increased by 15,000 tonnes to almost 25,000
tonnes (AFP, 2014). Only a small part (6%) of the total production came from aquaculture (less than
