Yemisi Izuora
The Minister for Industry, Trade, and Investment; Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite has launched the National Talent Export Programme, (NATEP) to make Nigeria a talent export hub to create one million jobs in the next five years.
The program launched at the Microsoft office in NewYork on the sidelines of the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly UNGA in NewYork; United States of America, is on behalf of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in New York.
NATEP is a special-purpose vehicle leveraging on the large population of teeming tech-savvy youth doing well in all facets of life.
Attended by a large gathering of world leaders and companies across the globe including Amazon, World Economic Forum, Microsoft group, Flour Mills Nigeria, Meta, Google, and a host of others, she highlighted the need to ensure Nigeria takes the lead in exporting global talents that are doing well across the world which will also drive a huge investment in training and also attracting more investment in talent exportation.
“The initiative is in line with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope agenda to diversify the Nigerian economy, create sustainability opportunities, and generate about 50 million jobs for the youths over time.
“As part of our strategy towards achieving this, President Bola Tinubu whose agenda for job creation, we have initiated a national talent export program for Nigeria, which targets the creation of one million jobs across Nigeria.
“With a target of over five years in line with the theme of this year’s UNGA, which is rebuilding trust and igniting global solidarity, accelerating action on the 2030 agenda and the sustainable development goals towards peace, prosperity, progress, and sustainability for all”.
The global talent sourcing industry is valued at $620 billion as of 2020 and industry pundits have forecasted it will be valued at about $904 billion by 2027.
“Nigeria can supply top talent for the global service export and outsourcing business, with over 1.7 million graduates from higher education institutions entering the workforce annually, this will reduce the burden of unemployed and over-dependent on the Government for jobs.”
NATEP is specially created to arrest the bottleneck facing the talent and service sector export industry, which will enhance competitiveness, and innovation, and drive sustainable development growth, Empowerment, and training through trade and value chain exchange.
“Nigeria is ready to become a global hub for talent export, as the government is ready to take full advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (ACfTA) to penetrate the continental huge market and target job opportunities.
“As a country, we have a significant value proposition for regional and global markets for the export of services. We will actively target Greenfield and brownfield job opportunities in the United Kingdom, Europe, China, Canada, the United States of America, and a host of other countries.”