The Federal Government has said the creative industry is important to the economy.

Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed made the statement while declaring open the African International Film Festival in Lagos on Sunday night.

What he said:

• The government is committed to the growth of the creative industry.
• It recognises the great potential of the industry to grow the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
• The creative industry is Nigeria’s next oil.

“The Nigerian government is proud of Nollywood and we are engaging stakeholders constantly to grow the sector. I will reiterate a few of the initiatives we have pursued to grow the sector.

“We are pursuing single digit interest loans towards infrastructural development in the sector. We are supporting about 100 community cinemas evenly spread across the country.

“We are almost closing on a world-class pre and post-production facility using existing infrastructure. We want to ensure that such world-class facility is located in each geo-political zone to boost movie productions and other contents.

“Finally, in the area of digital television, we are ensuring that set-up boxes are enabled to allow customers in about 30 million homes to access and buy our movies for the development of the sector.”