The Government of United Kingdom
has announced a new £70 million programme to create 100,000 jobs in Nigeria.
This was disclosed by the UK
Minister of State for Africa, Harriett Baldwin on Wednesday.
She spoke during a business event
as part of the activities for Prime Minister Theresa May’s visit to Nigeria on
Wednesday.
NAN reports that Baldwin, who led
a business delegation to the event, said that the programme would raise the
income of three million people from the poorest parts of Nigeria.
“We are here today to talk about
technology links between the UK Fintech sector and the Nigerian Fintech sector
and will bring inward investment in terms of this important sector of
technology.
“Today, it is all about
celebrating those links through technology and I am very excited that the Prime
Minister is announcing today a new £70 million programme that will create some
100,000 jobs in Nigeria and will also raise the income of three million people
from the poorest parts of Nigeria,” she said.
The minister said that the event
was celebrating the role of growing businesses and entrepreneurs and also
highlighted the partnerships of both countries in the area of technological
development.
She added that the delegation
consisted of various UK businesses were willing to invest “the kind of capital
that creates jobs”.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and
the Ministers of Finance and Power, Works and Housing, Kemi Adeosun and
Babatunde Fashola respectively, attended the event.
Osinbajo said that the Federal
Government was keen on driving technology development in the country in support
of the government’s economic growth plan.
The vice president said there was
the need to create the right environment for technology companies to thrive and
further gave an assurance of the government’s commitment to support innovation
in the country.
“I think just looking at some of
the start-ups that we see today, many of them started while the recession was
on and they proved, by just a number of jobs, value and wealth created, that
this is the future starting today.
“This is why we have started up
first with the creativity and technology advisory group; many of these
start-ups are members of this group where they help to formulate policies with
Federal Government policy makers especially in fintech, which are some of the
new areas we need to formulate policies,” he said.
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