It was a far cry from the opening of the New York Stock Exchange, but Rwanda's finance minister checked the clock was approaching 9am, took the hand-held bell passed to him, and gave it three evenly-spaced rings to signal the start of a new trading day last week on Africa's newest securities exchange.

Applause from a handful of officials and journalists rippled across the trading floor - an empty-looking office space gutted of its desks and cubicles.