By Yemisi Izuora-Lagos
The finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has said that investment in training and skill development will boost capacity of the insurance sector to create jobs for 100,000 people in the next three years, and to more than 300,000 people in the next decade.
Okonjo-Iweala giving this charge while delivering her keynote address at the 2014 Insurance summit with the theme: Transforming the Nigerian Insurance Sector – A three Year Agenda said investment in training and skills development for the sector will prepare the young men and women for careers in the insurance sector.
She noted that despite the various policies put in place by the regulator to deepen insurance the industry has only be able to create about 30, 000 jobs which she said is not good enough.
The Minister noted that insurance industry is the engine for job creation in the country and that government’s target is to grow the number of direct employment to 100,000 in the three years from its present 10,000.
“Unleashing the latent energies of the insurance industry to create more jobs and boost economic development is one of our strategic responses to close the gap created by the economic challenges we are confronting at the moment”
“Given the great progress which the banking and pension sectors have made in the last decade, insurance can do as well or even better”
She also tasked the insurance industry to impart positively on the economy of the nation like the banking sector by growing its Insurance industry Premium to N1 trillion in the next three years, and to N5 trillion within the next decade.
