The Federal Government of Nigeria has set a target for the country’s creative sector to contribute about 2.3% to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and create an additional 2 million jobs by 2030, as part of efforts to position the creative economy as a major driver of national economic growth.
According to Nairametrics, the Minister of Art, Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa, disclosed the target during a meeting with the Director-General of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Professor Ayo Omotayo, and former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed.
The meeting focused on NIPSS plans to organise a National Summit and Exhibition on the Orange Economy, with the institute seeking the ministry’s collaboration as the lead government institution responsible for creative economy and tourism policy. Musawa said the ministry is developing the necessary policy and institutional framework to achieve its creative economy ambitions, including work on a new National Tourism Policy expected to provide a long-term framework for the sector.
She said four drafting committees had been inaugurated to address policy and strategy, programmes and implementation, stakeholder engagement, and monitoring and evaluation, with the aim of establishing the institutional and financial architecture needed to develop Nigeria’s creative industries. The minister noted that the creative, cultural and tourism sectors are currently being repositioned as engines of economic growth rather than secondary components of the economy. The creative sector currently contributes an estimated 1.2% to 2% of Nigeria’s GDP and employs approximately 4.2 million Nigerians.
NIPSS Director-General Ayo Omotayo said the sector has the potential to contribute as much as US$450 billion to Nigeria’s economy and could play a significant role in supporting President Bola Tinubu’s ambition of building a US$1 trillion economy by 2030. The latest projection builds on an earlier government ambition announced by Musawa in May 2025, when she said the Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy was targeting a US$100 billion contribution to Nigeria’s economy by 2030 through the monetisation and development of the country’s tangible and intangible creative, cultural and tourism assets.
The government’s renewed focus places Nigeria’s creative economy, cultural heritage and tourism at the centre of its broader economic diversification strategy, with job creation, investment and stronger monetisation of the country’s cultural assets identified as key priorities.
