Fashion, Tourism Contribute N3.2 Trillion to the Economy

The Federal Government said the nation generated a total sum of N3.2 trillion from the fashion and tourism industries.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who was a guest on the NAN Forum in Abuja, disclosed this on Thursday.

He said the recommendations by the committee led by ace comedian, Ali Baba, on how to mitigate the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the creative industry were revealing.

The minister said the implementation committee will be set up on Tuesday to determine which of the recommendations will be forwarded to the Federal Executive Council for policy decisions and the National Assembly for legislation.

He said “Before now, we did not know that the fashion industry accounts for almost N2 trillion revenue that the hospitality and tourism industry accounts for about N1.2 trillion.

“The publishing and printing industry accounts for almost N1 trillion and about N720 billion worth of books and paper enter the country annually.

“The film industry accounts for about N140 billion, the music industry revenue is over N300 billion while the comedy industry accounts for about N17 billion,” he said.

Mohammed said that apart from the revenues realised, the report stated the number of people employed in each of the two sectors.

“You will be amazed that though the film industry accounts for only N140 billion, it employs almost half a million people.

“The broadcast and advertising industry which I think accounts for another N500 billion also employs almost 500,000 people.

“The beauty and hair care industry does not only account for about 30,000 practitioners, but also about 15,000 pieces of hair care, but beauty care is also sold every month in Nigeria.

“We are also able to find out through that report that under hospitality industry, about 20,000 events take place every month only in Lagos while in the year 2016, about 1.9 million events were held,” he said.