KIGALI, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda Development Board (RDB) on Tuesday said registered investments in Rwanda passed 2 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, for the first time in Rwanda's history.

This is evidence that the central African country is being seen increasingly as a great place to do business, which establishes a hub to access the continent's tremendous opportunities, said RDB Chief Investment Officer Guy Baron in a statement released from RDB in Rwandan capital city Kigali.

The national investment department registered 173 investment projects in Rwanda worth 2.006 billion dollars in 2018, increasing by 20 percent compared to 1.675 billion dollars worth of investments in 2017, said the statement.

Of the total investments registered in 2018, an estimated 26 percent represents export oriented projects, it said.

Manufacturing, mining, agriculture and agro-processing accounted for 57 percent of registered investments, and other sectors that attracted significant investments were tourism, healthcare, business services and ICT, it added.

Forty-nine percent of investment registrations in 2018 were from domestic investors, 47 percent from foreign direct investment represented 47 percent of the total, ioint ventures of local and foreign investors represented about 4 percent, according to the statement.