The completion of construction activities of the cannabis production facility in Musanze District in the Northern Province has been extended to September 2024.
The plant is being constructed by King Kong Organics (KKOG), a subsidiary of KKOG Global, which became the first company to secure a five-year license from the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) to operate cannabis production.
KKOG said it dedicated an initial investment of $10 million for machinery, facility construction, payment of fees in land acquisition and contractors, as well as importing genetically modified cannabis seeds, among others.
KKOG Founder and CEO, Rene Joseph, explained that the construction of the company’s facility, originally slated for completion in May, was delayed due to the need for a new access road to the site.
“We are at 70 per cent to complete the facility set up and we expect to finish by the first week of September,” he said.
According to Joseph, the production process that involves the extraction of cannabis oils, which will mainly be exported, will be possible with the government of Rwanda’s partnership of injecting about $3 million in the project.
Efforts to get more details about the government financing for the project from the Ministry of Finance were futile by press time.
KKOG targets to produce at least 5,000 kilogrammes per hectare whereby cannabis plants grow within a period of four to six months.
RDB allocated about 35 hectares to five potential investors, five hectares each and 10 hectares for communal use and security purposes, in Musanze District.
The government pledged to provide the infrastructure needed including roads, fencing of the site where high-value therapeutic crops (including cannabis) will be grown, security cameras for surveillance purposes to avoid the leakage of the plants and their products to the public, and electricity supply.
During the 2023/2024 fiscal year budget, RDB had allocated Rwf700 million to the cannabis project and in the current fiscal year, it allocated more than Rwf2 billion.
Officials indicated that a hectare of cannabis crops can generate up to $10 million in revenue, an amount that is more than 30 times the $300,000 that can come out of a hectare of flowers – which are also considered a high-value plant.
Revenue in the medical cannabis market worldwide is forecasted to reach $20.24 billion in 2024, and is anticipated to demonstrate an annual growth rate of 2.10 per cent, leading to a market volume of $22.46 billion by 2029, according to Statista, a Germany-based data analysis company.
The top cannabis markets in Africa are Nigeria with $15.3 billion, Ethiopia with $9.8 billion, and Morocco with $3.5 billion.
Although Rwanda legalised medical marijuana, the use and sale of recreational cannabis remain illegal and there are strict penalties for the illicit production, distribution, and consumption of cannabis.
