1. At a recently concluded international conference on the gainful employment potentials in the oil and gas sector, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, the
petroleum industry has been identified as a catalyst for employment generation and economic development, especially in the areas of the gas, petroleum refining, petrochemical and fertilizer reports the Vanguard.
2.The National Information Technology Development Agency,
NITDA is to partner with Accenture on capacity building in the area of e-government. The Director General of NITDA Mr. Peter Jack noted that the focus of his administration was to position the agency as prime catalyst for national transformation for global competitiveness.
3. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group has said it
provided billions of dollars of new financing and investment mobilisation and has also delivered wide-ranging advisory services in Africa in its 2014 fiscal year. In its results for the 2014 fiscal year, the IFC stated that its activities impacted 1.1 million farmers, provided $17 billion of financing to entrepreneurs, delivered health services to a million patients and improved quality of education for 117,000 students.
4. According to THISDAY,
Nigeria leads in the list of over 40 start-ups selected to participate in this years’ Demo Africa 2014. Nigeria takes the largest chunk of the final 40 with a total of 14 start-ups, followed by Kenya, Ghana and Egypt. Rwanda, Tanzania, South Africa and Ethiopia, each has two representatives, while Tunisia, Benin, Cameroon, Uganda and Zimbabwe also earned their space at the DEMO Africa platform.
5.Forte Oil Plc, one of Nigeria’s petroleum products retailers,
has acquired 100 brand new product delivery trucks in line with its strategy to sustain operational efficiency and attain exceptional products throughout. This move, the firm said, was a step toward its market dominance in the country’s downstream sector.
6. Managing Director of Nigeria’s online marketplace, Kaymu.com.ng, Evangeline Wiles, has said that of the
enormous growth rate being recorded on the e-commerce sector, about N1.3 billion per month, is driven by the middle class.
7. The Capital Market Committee has said it is finalising work on a
10-year master plan for the years 2015-2025 aimed at ensuring the guided growth of the Nigerian capital market. The master plan is specifically aimed at increasing the depth of the capital market, increasing foreign direct investment and to diversifying the sources of capital, among other things the Punch reports.
8. MTN Foundation has
donated personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and caregivers in support of Lagos State’s effort at containing the spread of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). The donation was made under the MTN Foundation’s Community Support Project, which lends a helping hand to communities through infrastructure upgrade such as the provision of water boreholes, transformers, among others for the benefit of people.
9.The fortune of the Nigeria’s advertising industry jacked up in 2013 to N103.8 billion, far above N91.9 billion that was recorded in 2012. The
pattern of the media spending by advertisers across the country thus represents an increase of N12.95 billion over the previous year. The growth, according to Media Facts, was primarily driven by the beer category; banking and finance, and personal paid adverts.
10. The Nation reports that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) recently
approved N13 billion for the establishment of ten rice mills and six cassava mills across the country. The Minister of Agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, stated that ten rice mills, which will have a total capacity to mill 360,000 metric tonnes of rice, will be located in ten states including Kebbi, Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger, Benue, Kogi, Bayelsa, Bauchi, Ogun and Nasarawa.
