…Says Economy projects to contribute $55.3trn to global GDP in 2023

By Emmanuel Elebeke

As the federal government strategizes to diversify the economy for optimum revenue generation, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Mallam Abdullahi Inuwa says the agency has set up a National Data Strategy, NDS to unlock Nigeria’s digital economy potential.

The Director General stated this on Tuesday at the formal inauguration of the Technical Working Committee, TWC and Workshop on the implementation of the National Data Strategy, NDS held in Abuja.

Inuwa, who spoke passionately about the untapped potential in digital economy, said it remains a huge contributor to the global economy, as data economy is worth over $3trn as of 2017.

Also quoting the world statistical body, Statista, the NITDA DG said the Digital Economy is worth more than $16trn, while digitally transformed enterprises contributed $13trn to global GDP in 2018 and is projected to contribute $55.3trn this year, which is more than 50% of the global GDP, hence the need for Nigeria to focus attention in the sector to harness the untapped potentials for the wellbeing of the economy.

He explained that the strategy was launched in order to get citizens to be literate about the importance of data, train them about digital skills and social gains as well as social security.

And with the inauguration of the Technical Working Committee for implementation of the NDS, he said Nigeria has shown readiness to for digital economy, ready to create wealth and prosperity using digital economy.

‘‘When you talk about digital economy, data is the currency. To have this kind of data strategic meeting today means Nigeria is ready for digital economy, ready to create wealth and prosperity using digital economy.

‘‘In this workshop, we look forward to a more projective session and also better projective recommendations that will help regulatory agencies to come up with regulations that will make the data economy better for the country.’’

The strategy was launched in March last year.