• Rwanda’s $2.5B intra-African trade relies on the DRC for 79% of exports, tethering fiscal stability to the June 2025 Washington Accords peace deal.

• Rebased real GDP growth sits at 7.2% as public debt nears 80% by 2027 to fund the New Kigali Airport and RwandAir’s logistics hub expansion.

• National Bank of Rwanda utilises competitive FX auctions for price discovery, replacing managed regimes to better absorb global economic shocks.

A December 2025 Afreximbank assessment quantifies Rwanda’s attempt to bypass the geographical constraints of being landlocked through a $2.5 billion intra-African trade portfolio, representing nearly 38% of its total trade. This commerce remains heavily concentrated, with 79% of African exports going directly to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

This reliance on a single neighbour makes the national economy acutely sensitive to the security of eastern DRC trade corridors, where the June 2025 Washington Accords now serve as the primary diplomatic framework for stabilising the transit of minerals and manufactured goods. Kigali’s development strategy is built on transforming into a regional logistics and services hub, anchored by the construction of the New Kigali International Airport and the expansion of the state carrier, RwandAir.

While official growth reached 8.9% in 2024, a comprehensive GDP rebasing in late 2025 adjusted the real growth estimate to a more sustainable 7.2%, reflecting a modernised economic structure dominated by high-value services. This high-growth trajectory is occurring alongside a rapid increase in public borrowing, with the debt-to-GDP ratio projected to approach 80% by 2027 as infrastructure spending peaks.

The success of this infrastructure-led model requires a structural shift from state-led investment to private sector-led productivity. While the IMF and African Development Bank maintain Rwanda’s debt distress risk at a moderate level, the fiscal buffer has thinned, placing a premium on the ability of mega-projects to generate foreign exchange and tax revenue faster than debt servicing costs accumulate.

To support this transition, the National Bank of Rwanda has introduced competitive foreign exchange auctions to enhance price discovery and currency flexibility, moving away from its historically managed regime to absorb external shocks better and improve policy credibility.This economic framework rests on the conviction that regional integration under the AfCFTA will reduce trade frictions and enable Rwanda to serve as a high-efficiency re-export gateway.

The strategy relies on a durable regional peace dividend to ensure that the $2.5 billion trade base can expand into the broader Great Lakes market. Without the stability promised by recent diplomatic frameworks, these logistics and aviation investments risk operating in a volatile, under-integrated regional market, where the margin for fiscal error is increasingly thin.

Cynthia Ebot Takang, Edited by Idriss Linge