(Adds details)
KIGALI, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Rwanda's economy grew 11.2 percent in 2008, up from 7.9 percent the previous year, thanks to a strong performance in the agriculture sector, the central bank said on Wednesday.
That was the highest growth for the landlocked east African nation in five years, local media said.
The bank said good weather and improved farming practices helped the agriculture sector grow 15 percent last year, up from 0.7 percent in 2007.
Rwanda's economy, still recovering from the devastation of a genocide in 1994, is overwhelmingly based on agriculture.
Construction activities were estimated to have grown 25.9 percent, though manufacturing contracted 4.0 percent.
Real estate and business grew 14.2 percent, while finance and insurance grew 12 percent and transport, storage and communication 11.4 percent.
Francois Kanimba, governor of the National Bank of Rwanda, told local media Rwanda should maintain double-digit GDP growth this year while attempting to curb inflation.
"We are in a growth cycle where we have to agree or accept some trade-off between growth and inflation," Kanimba was quoted as saying in local New Times newspaper. (Reporting by Hereward Holland; Editing by Kim Coghill)