The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is set to officially commence the implementation of the N22 billion Creative industry development scheme. This was disclosed by the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, at the Creative Nigeria Summit.
Emefiele made known that a 40-acre Creative Industry park would be developed around the National Theatre in Lagos with similar parks to be located in Kano, Port Harcourt or Enugu.
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The Creative Industry Initiative, he said was aimed at unlocking the creative talents of Nigerian youths and was designed to generate 800,000 jobs in the movie, music and fashion sectors, and increase the revenue of the industry by $300 million.
“Our goal through the establishment of these parks is to create an environment where startups and existing businesses can be incubated and rewarded for their creativity. In each of these parks, efforts will be focused on discovering the most innovative young entrepreneurs across the music, movie, fashion and IT industries.
“Each park will be able to support skills acquisition for over 200,000 Nigerians. These individuals will be empowered with funds at a single-digit interest rate, state-of-the-art tools, high-level training and networks, that will enable them to turn their ideas into a reality,” Emefiele said.
The Plan: The CBN governor stated that throughout the initiative, over a 5 year period, 50 additional cinemas would be developed across the country. This, he said would increase the contribution of the movie industry to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 3% from the current level of 1%.
The plan is said to create over 200,000 direct and indirect jobs in the country. Just like the movie industry, the music industry would also be expanding through this initiative, as over the next five years, young Nigerians would be able to capture significant market share of the $10.7 billion music industry. It would also create over 500,000 direct and indirect jobs.
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Nairametrics had reported when the CBN unveiled the Creative Industry Financing Initiative (CIFI) earlier, in May this year which was to enable the creative sector to get loans to support their businesses. Also, it was borne out of the committee’s conviction that the sector holds the key to job creation, poverty reduction, and inclusive growth.
