Rwandan President meets President Tharman, PM Wong and SM Lee

Rwanda is a compelling story of how social peace drives economic development, and despite its smaller size and landlocked geography, the country is one of Africa's fastest-growing economies, said Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

- Ang Qing

In a Facebook post on Sept 20, Mr Tharman added that he was delighted to again meet visiting Rwandan President Paul Kagame, "who has steered Rwanda's new national journey".

Mr Tharman said: "Our two countries have been close partners. We discussed the new areas of cooperation being worked on - including carbon credits, digital and fintech cooperation, and solutions for water resilience."

He added that the country has succeeded through "colossal effort to overcome a bloody history of conflict between its two main tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis - including the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when 800,000 people were killed".

Today, it has made large strides in education and healthcare, and information and communication technology infrastructure.