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President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday thanked the World Economic Forum (WEF) for its decision to organise the event in Nigeria, stating that with the recent rebasing of Nigeria’s GDP, the country had become the biggest economy in Africa and the 26th globally, noting however, that economic growth had not translated to job creation. Speaking at the 24th World Economic Forum on Africa in Abuja, the president said a major plank of his administration’s transformation agenda was how to create jobs, noting that unemployment was a global phenomenon, going by the World Bank’s report.
“First, the need to create jobs is a global problem. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that in 2013 over 200 million people were unemployed around the world; and this included about 75 million young people between the ages of 15 and 24. Practically, all countries around the world are concerned about job creation.
“Developed economies, such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom and the Eurozone countries are all monitoring their employment numbers very closely to see if their economies are recovering from the recent global recession.
“In southern European countries such as Spain and Portugal, unemployment rates have remained high in recent years at above 20 per cent.
“Our recent GDP rebasing exercise shows that the services sector now accounts for about 51 per cent of our economy, up from 26 per cent previously. And so we are introducing targeted measures to further harness this sector by supporting the development of our SMEs.
“For example, we are working to develop our housing and construction sector, given its potential to create jobs for our craftsmen and artisans. We also recently launched our National Industrial Revolution Plan which will further invigorate our manufacturing sector.
“In addition, in the short-term, we have also introduced special, government initiatives such as a business plan competition for young entrepreneurs (called YouWiN) which provides grants between $10,000 to $90,000 equivalent to the best business plans.
“This programme has thus far supported more than 2,400 young entrepreneurs who have created more than 26,000 jobs.
“ We also have a Graduate Internship Scheme which places recent graduates in private sector jobs. Also, a public works programme as part of our Subsidy Re-investment Program (SURE-P) which has created about 120,000 jobs.
“Overall, the National Bureau of Statistics estimates that 1.6 million jobs were created across the country in the past 12 months, but my administration is not relenting because we are aware that even more jobs are needed to support our growing youth population,” he said.
Jonathan acknowledged that while the average unemployment rate is at about 20 per cent in Africa, Nigeria’s stands at about 24 per cent, adding that the government lacks the wherewithal to create jobs for the teeming unemployed youths but has to evolve strategies and policies that are conducive for the private sector to thrive and create the needed jobs.
The president stated that his government was desirous of building an economy that is inclusive.
At the forum, China also unveiled what it christened a new framework of “four principles, six areas and one platform for advancing China-African cooperation, adding that the cooperation will centre on six major areas, including industrial cooperation, financial cooperation, financial cooperation, cooperation on poverty reduction, cooperation on environmental protection, cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and cooperation on peace and security.
Visiting Chinese Premier, Li Kequang, said his country would upgrade China-Africa cooperation in response to the new development needs of Africa and elevate “our new type of strategic partnership to a new level”.
In his speech titled “Work Together to Scale New Heights in African Development”, Keqiang listed them as a network of high-speed railway in Africa and a network of expressways, adding that Africa has become a major pole in the world political arena, with a population of one billion as well as an aggregate economy of over $2 trillion.
According to him, Africa’s rise as a whole would only make the world more democratic, stable, dynamic and colourful, and better facilitate peace, development and progress in the world.
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