Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has lauded President Bola Tinubu for stabilising the Nigerian economy.
Okonjo-Iweala, who served as twice as Nigeria’s Minister for Finance, made this known during a courtesy visit to Tinubu at the Presidential Villa on Thursday.
She said what is needed next in the country is economic growth.
“So we think that the president and his team – and we just exchanged with him – have worked hard to stabilize the economy. And you cannot really improve an economy unless it’s stable,” Okonjo-Iweala said.
The WTO DG added that “Tinubu has to be given the credit for the stability of the economy”.
“So the reforms have been in the right direction. What is needed next is growth,” she said.
“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 nets to help Nigerians cushion the hardship they’re feeling? And then how do we grow the economy so we can create more jobs and put more money in people’s pockets?”
Okonjo-Iweala said these are issues that have been discussed with the president but did not give further details.
According to Okonjo-Iweala, 146 Nigerian women will be part of the Women Exporters Fund for the Digital Economy – jointly managed by the WTO and the International Trade Centre.
She said, “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 served twice as Nigeria’s Finance Minister (2003–2006 and 2011–2015).
This marks a solid improvement from the 2.27% growth recorded in Q1 2024 and reflects the continued resilience of the economy, underpinned by strong performances in the services and industry sectors.