Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, yesterday said Nigeria has achieved a significant 35 percent local content compliance in 2021 from a dismal five percent in 2010.
Speaking during the maiden edition of the African Local Content Roundtable (ALCR), at the Nigerian Content Tower, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, yesterday, Sylva said through implementation of local content, Nigeria has been able to achieve significant progress in value addition, adding that Nigeria plans to achieve 70 percent local content compliance in the next six years.
He said: “We have achieved significant growth in-country value addition from less than five percent in 2010 to 35 percent in 2021 and have set an ambitious target to achieve 70 percent local content in the oil and gas sector by 2027.”
Sylvia said the nation’s “success story in the oil and gas industry has led to bold step to extend local content to other sectors of the economy,” stressing that “as a caring African country, we have also considered it necessary to amplify the benefits of local content to our fellow African countries and that is the essence of the African Local Content Roundtable.”
Speaking further, the minister said “any country that aspires to achieve rapid and sustainable economic growth must put in place an economic model that enables its human capital to harness its natural resources to create wealth and economic prosperity.”
He noted that Nigeria embraced “local content as an economic development model for the oil and gas sector,” adding that the move helped to effectively develop the nation’s abundant hydrocarbon despots.