CBN okays N22b for entertainment industry, others

TRACKING_____The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) plans to invest N22 billion in the entertainment industry and software manufacturing.

Its Director of Corporate Communications, Mr Isaac Okorafor, who spoke during a one-day Interactive Session with Stakeholders on the five-year policy thrust of the CBN during the weekend in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital, said the move was to add more strength to the industry as it has taken the leading role in Africa, adding that the move would also censure piracy while providing grounds for originality.

He said the CBN has also decided to resurrect the textile industry.

“Currently, Nollywood and Nigerian music industry is the leading entertainment industry in Africa. We will not let the industry down. We are ready to fund actors and actresses in the industry.

“And you know that Nigeria is one of the countries when it comes to software manufacturing, we will fund people in that area too.

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“We have decided that we must resurrect the textile industry. We have started by funding the farmers who plant the cottons; we are funding the entire value chain so that anybody who plays a role including the taylors and garment makers so that the chain will not be broken. We have gone into palm oil.

“We are doing this because if the economy does not function well, the CBN will be unable to perform its own duties, for instance in the whole of monetary and price stability, inflation cannot be stable if food prices are not stable because food constitutes more than 50 percent of what we spend in Nigeria.

“If people do not have food to eat, productivity will not increase. If people do not have food to eat the health of the nation cannot be .only a healthy person that can be productive and bring about economic growth And in a situation where jobs cannot be created worker will be restless, jobless workers become easy instruments in the hands of those who organise criminality,” he said.