President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has said all his investments would be made towards job creation for gainful employment so as to alleviate poverty in the country.
Speaking against the background of a recent global survey, which declared Nigeria as having the potential to lead the continent in terms of growth by 2020, Dangote said what Nigerians needed most was economic empowerment.
Dangote was quoted in a statement, to have said at the weekend in Lagos that only a working population whether self-employed or engaged could be economically empowered.
According to him, all hands must be on deck to ensure the dream of Nigeria's economic turn-around becomes a reality.
He therefore urged local investors to complement the efforts of the Federal Government in ensuring the success of the economic agenda by delving into manufacturing as one of the means of empowering Nigerians through job creation.
The report noted that Africa was harnessing its natural wealth, and that certain sectors across the economy were growing rapidly. These sectors include: agriculture, manufacturing, local services such as retail, banking, and transportation and communications and natural resources sector.The report on Africa's growth and Job creation, by McKinsey Global Institute has described Africa as the second fastest growing region in the world with decline in poverty.
Also, the report believed that, Nigeria, for example, enjoyed abundant natural gas and a growing local construction industry, comparative advantages that have already brought some major private-sector success stories.
However, the report indicated that Nigerian manufacturing was said to still face a range of obstacles, including weak infrastructure and logistics bottlenecks, and removing these would allow similar success stories to emerge.
But Dangote advised Nigeria to take the advantage of favourable analysis of state of agriculture, manufacturing, retail and hospitality sectors, which have the potential to create up to 72 million wage-paying jobs across all sectors by 2020.
He said that capturing this potential would move Africa closer to matching the job-creation trajectory of South Korea and other successful emerging markets.
source:thisday
