The Bank of Industry (BOI) in partnership with the All Africa Music Awards has indicated interest to boost the country’s creative and entertainment industry.
The acting Managing Director, BOI, Mr. Waheed Olagunju, said this would help the industry and the country in general to explore the abundant talents as well as save the nation’s huge foreign exchange spent on acquiring structures and facilities including studios.
Olagunju, who stated this at a press briefing in Lagos, added that despite the little attention given to the entertainment sector, it had managed to contribute about 1.42 per cent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product.
“In BOI’s paradigm shift, we have paid considerable attention to the creative industry because we are aware of its potential and contributions to the Nigerian economy under the rebased figured released recently; the industry contributes about 1.42 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP and this is without support. This shows that there is a lot more to be achieved if given the necessary support,” he said.
He added that investing in the industry would help to create job opportunities as well as support other value chains in the sector.
He said, “We are assuring you that we will look at your proposals and evaluate them to see how best we can support this process. We have talents in Nigeria but what we are lacking are mainly structures. The National Copyright Commission is doing its best to ensure that intellectual property right is protected.
“If we get things right, this partnership will not only help us to conserve foreign exchange but will also help us to attract foreign exchange and put up structures that are of world-class standards.”
The Executive Producer, AFRIMA, Mr. Mike Dada, said the ultimate goal of AFRIMA was to create a platform to communicate the identity of Africa and create ways for the industry to increase its contributions to the GDP.
“AFRIMA is in partnership with the Africa Union because we observed that the creative sector has tremendous impact on Africa’s GDP which we have barely scratched its surface. We are also calling for support from both the public and private sectors in this regard,” he added.
The Director, Brand Communications and Sponsorship, AFRIMA, Mrs. Matlou Tsotetsi, said that part of AFRIMA’s effort to drive growth in the sector had been its quest to get partnerships from the private and public sectors to key into the initiative.
According to her, AFRIMA has held meetings with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment in order to showcase the huge employment opportunities in the industry.
She said BoI and AfRIMA’s partnership would also position the country as a destination for foreign direct investment.
