Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, WTO, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said Nigeria needs to create 5 million jobs for at least 10 years to tackle unemployment.
The WTO DG who made this prediction when she met with captains of industry in Abuja on Tuesday, stressed that Nigeria must create jobs, especially for its young people.
While urging the captains of industry to pursue value-added manufacturing, she noted that conomic growth in Nigeria has been sluggish since 2016 when oil prices tumbled globally.
“Nigeria’s economy is at a critical juncture. Insufficient structural change has made Nigeria more vulnerable to the shocks in the fall of oil prices five years ago and now it must grapple with the impact of the pandemic.
“The looming transition to a low carbon global economy implies more changes ahead,” she said.
She further advised Nigeria to focus on careful economic planning and management for economic growth, adding that Nigeria has strong economic and comparable advantages in Africa.
“Nigeria can still negotiate for two to three decades transition period during which we can still use our petrol cars and ramp up capacity in renewable energy,” she added.
Responding, Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, urged the WTO to help Nigeria in its quest to make a mark in the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA.
“One area you can help us with is at AfCTA. We need a lot of support from the WTO to make sure that it works.
“Right now, the biggest challenge that we have is that the regional markets are not really working.
“They work to a certain extent but a couple of them are not following the rules,” he said.
He noted that by early next quarter, Nigeria will be the largest exporter of fertiliser in Africa.
“Our company will end up being nearly export-oriented. We will export excess cement, we will export petrochemicals.
“We will export urea. The only one we will not export is sugar, which under the leadership of the Honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, we are doing massive backward integration to make sure if we don’t export, we will not import,” Dangote added.
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