The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has praised President Bola Tinubu for efforts aimed at stabilising Nigeria’s economy, describing reforms under his administration as “moving in the right direction.”
Speaking to State House correspondents on Thursday after a courtesy visit to the President, Okonjo-Iweala revealed that their discussions focused on the launch of a major initiative to support Nigerian women in the digital export economy.
“We came to brief Mr. President about something very joyful that we did today with the help of the First Lady – the launch of the Women Exporters Fund for the Digital Economy. This fund, jointly managed by the WTO and the International Trade Centre, in Geneva, to help support the economy and support women, to be able to weather the storms of the economy and be able to create jobs for themselves, for others.
“So, we came to brief Mr. President about this fund, which we launched. the Minister of Trade and Investment has been shepherding this effort in Nigeria, along with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council.
“Nigeria competed and won one of four countries that won globally to be part of this new initiative. We had 67,000 Nigerian women who applied for this and 146 won and they are going to have money disbursed directly to them. 16 of them, won what we call the booster track, those who already have businesses, but their businesses will be scaled up.
“They will receive technical and business support for 18 months from the WTO and the ITC and working with the ministry, so we will all work together to make sure that their businesses expand, they employ more people, they put money in their households pocket and in the nation’s pocket, then another 100 will get directly $5,000 to scale up to start and strengthen their businesses again with 12 months of business support,” she explained.
Okonjo-Iweala also acknowledged the progress made in stabilising the economy.
“We think that the President and his team, have worked hard to stabilize the economy, and you cannot really improve an economy unless it’s stable. So he has to be given the credit for the stability of the economy. So the reforms have been in the right direction,” she said.
Okonjo-Iweala revealed that their discussions focused on the launch of a major initiative to support Nigerian women in the digital export economy. emphasised that economic stability should be followed by policies to drive growth and reduce poverty.
“What is needed next is growth. We now need to grow the economy, and we need to put in social safety nets so that people who are feeling the pinch of the reforms can also have some support to be able to weather the hardship. So that’s the next step.
How do we build social safety net to help Nigerians cushion the hardship they are feeling? Then, how do we grow the economy so we can create more jobs and put more money in people’s pockets? These are issues that we discussed with Mr. President,” she stated.
