The Federal Government has announced plans to focus on boosting services exports, enabling Nigerians to secure online contracts with foreign firms.

This was revealed by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, during the 2024 Access Bank Corporate Customers Forum, themed: “Nigeria’s Economic Rebirth: Hopes and Implications.”

Edun highlighted that Nigerians can achieve this by capitalising on the country’s large population and the opportunities available. He also noted that the government’s ongoing reforms are already showing positive results, as efforts are being made to increase oil production and boost non-oil exports. Citing the Philippines as an example, he stressed the importance of a skilled workforce and access to international markets.

“An important area that we must look at when we are looking at non-dominant exports is services. We have the demographics, and we have a relatively skilled population, which means that we can export our services. They have the demand and the procedures. So, rather than Nigeria going out to try and export and find markets, we can just piggyback on them. They can sub-contract to Nigeria some of the online services, and some of these centers provide services online. We can learn from them, benefit from them, and subcontract to them,” he said.

Speaking further on the Federal Government’s stabilisation plan, which he said includes interventions in agriculture, social safety nets, manufacturing and scaling up SMEs; he said to improve food security and availability of raw materials, 360,000 farmers would be supported, mobilised and provided with resources to cultivate 360,000 hectares of farmland.

He added that with this in place, they expect a yield of 1.4 million metric tons of maize, wheat, cassava and tubers by January 2025, when the harvest is due. He stressed the country’s need to produce the food it consumes and for export as well as use for agro-industrial activities.