The newly appointed Director-General of World Trade Organisation (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has applauded Nigeria’s Afrobeat stars, Burna Boy and Wizkid, for winning awards at the 2021 Grammy.
Okonjo-Iweala who made the comments in Abuja while meeting with captains of the entertainment industry said that Nigeria had a comparative advantage in services due to its large number of educated people.
Speaking further, the WTO DG who described the Nigerian entertainment industry as a vibrant services sector embodied by artists, writers, musicians, actors, and filmmakers should be encouraged for export in Nigeria.
She said; “Recently, Nigeria’s Burna Boy and Wizkid won the grammy award for their music, and I will like to congratulate and applaud them because they were an example of services we can export.
“We are exporting so much of our creative arts abroad, and this seems to be encouraged,” she said.
She further said Nigeria’s economy was at a critical juncture, adding that insufficient structural change had made Nigeria more vulnerable to shocks from the fall in oil prices five years ago.
She added, “The world bank estimates that even without the pandemic, two million Nigerians would have fallen into poverty in 2020. The pandemic-induced recession is likely to have pushed an additional five million Nigerians into poverty in 2020.
“Nigeria’s economy shrank by 2.2 percent in 2020 and will only recover to 1.5 percent growth in 2021, according to IMF data. With the domestic market of over 200 million people accounting to Africa’s economic outlook Nigeria has the potential to be an engine of investment, innovation, and job creation in West Africa,” Okonjo-Iweala said.
