The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, says the Federal Government through Bank of Industry (BoI) has approved facility of about seven billion naira under its creative industry group.

Ahmed said this at the Greeners Business-to-Business Annual National Economic Dialogue 2020 held in Abuja on Saturday.

The economic dialogue has a theme “Positioning Nigeria’s Creative Industry as Growth Engine of Africa Continental Trade Agreement (AFCTA)”.

Represented by her Special Adviser on Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Dr Armstrong Takang, the minister said the fund was approved to a creative group of 35 firms in content production, content distribution, production equipment, digital transmission equipment among others.

Ahmed said in order to continue to build capacities among Nigerian youths, the N-Power Creative programme was created to train and develop 5,000 young creative talents.

According to her, the strategy is to put the creative industry on the global radar as exporters of world-class services and content.

She disclosed that the beneficiaries were trained and certified in Animation, Graphic Design, Post-production and Script Writing.

She added that all beneficiaries received computing devices that enabled them to master their skills during and after the training.

Speaking on AFCTA, the minister said the major areas which Nigeria had a comparative advantage in the creative economy were Music, Film, Information Technology Industries and Fashion.

She stated that in 2016, the film industry sector contributed N239 billion of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Nigeria’s music industry grew by 9 per cent in 2016 to reach a value of 39 million dollars.

Ahmed noted that the music industry was set to grow by 13.4 per cent by 2021, with an estimated worth of about 73 million dollars adding that the gaming industry in Nigeria was also growing.

“The gaming industry is benefitting from a widening customer base, mostly the large and youthful population. UNICON values Nigeria’s video game industry at 150 million dollars.

“It also estimates mobile gaming to surpass 147 million dollars by 2020.”

In his remarks, the convener of the dialogue, Dr. Mustapha Popoola said this year programme was the fifth economic dialogue which aimed at mentoring people to develop their businesses. Popoola said that a lot of Nigerians mainly youths had registered under the platform.

He disclosed that the business to business which was a hub was being taken to a creative hub and would be expanded to major cities of the country.

He stated that plan had been concluded to open centres in Lagos and Kano with a view to helping develop people with business ideas across the country. (Vanguard)