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| Photo credit: Vanguard |
The Federal Government has secured over N44 billion funding
support from the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development
(DFID) to create 460,000 jobs across eight sectors of the economy under the
Growth and Employment (GEM) project over the next six years (2013-2018).
Ambassador Abdulkadir Musa, the Permanent Secretary, Federal
Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, disclosed this during a programme
for GEM Entertainment Cluster workshop held in Lagos.
According to him, GEM is an employment project formulated by the
ministry and supported by World Bank and the DFID.
“The DFID has provided 90 million Euros (about N18.5 billion) as
grant and the World Bank $160 million (about N25.6 billion concessionary loans
for the implementation of the project in Nigeria,” he stated.
He said that the project which has started running since June last
year and will expire September 2018, is aimed at job creation and increased
non-oil growth in specific high-potential value chain sectors.
Represented by Yunusa Labaran, GEM Project Coordinator, the
Permanent Secretary, explained that the project has identified eight sectors
based on their growth and employment potential and they are: Entertainment
industry, ICT, hospitality and tourism; meat and leather, light manufacturing
and agro processing; construction/real estate as well as whole sale and retail
sector.
According to him, GEM is being implemented under three pillars,
namely, “To address gaps that prevent key growth centers from expanding and
hiring more Nigerians; to provide technical assistance and linkage services to
small producers in the eight sectors to enable them to supply local and global
supermarket chains. The project is also aimed at improving the business
enabling environment so that the businesses can grow faster, and become more
profitable.”
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