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Henry Uche
The Federal Government, through the Bank Of Industry (BoI), has injected N7billion facility into its creative industry group with the aim of positioning the sector on the global radar as exporters of world-class services and contents. The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, made this known over the weekend at the fifth Greeners Business-to-Business Annual National Economic Dialogue 2020 held in Abuja. Represented by her Special Adviser on Information & Communication Technology (ICT), Armstrong Takang, the minister said the fund was approved to a creative group of 35 creative firms in content production, content distribution, production equipment, digital transmission equipment among others.
Emphasing on the theme “Positioning Nigeria’s Creative Industry as Growth Engine of Africa Continental Trade Agreement (AFCTA)”, Mrs Ahmed said, in order to continue to build capacities of young Nigerians, the N-Power Creative programme was a medium created to train and harness 5,000 young creative talents.
According to her, the goal is to put the creative industry on the global radar as exporters of world-class services and content, disclosed that beneficiaries were trained and certified in Animation, Graphic Design, Post-production and Script Writing and would received computing devices that enabled them to master their skills during and after the training.
On AFCTA, the minister said the major areas which Nigeria have comparative edge in the creative economy are fashion, music, film, information technology Industries, among others. She noted that the music industry was set to grow by 13.4 per cent by 2021, with an estimated value of about US$73 million, adding that the gaming industry in Nigeria is set on the right track.
“The gaming industry is benefitting from a widening customer base, mostly the youthful population. Our video game industry has been valued at $150 million, mobile gaming has been estimated to surpass $147 million by 2020”.
