The aviation industry will, in the near future, contribute over N500billion to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually and support more than 200,000 jobs, the Federal Ministry of Aviation has said.
The ministry also projected that the sector will contribute an additional N300billion to the Nigerian economy directly and indirectly.
This, it said, will come from additional investments, construction of aviation infrastructure and foreign direct investment inflows into the industry.
Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, while speaking on the topic, “Understanding the Master Plan” in Lagos, said that there is also the forecast that by the time the Aerotropolis Project is completed, additional 80,000 – 100,000 job opportunities would have been created.
She added, however, that the inability of Nigeria to reciprocate its Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) rights, dominance of international carriers on regional and international routes to and from Nigeria, resulting in capital flight of about N300billion annually, among others, had debarred Nigeria from attaining its envious glory in aviation.
Oduah also attributed part of the deep-rooted problems in the sector to leakages in revenue collection occasioned largely by manual collection of statutory fees.
According to her, “Stagnant aviation manpower development and human capital flight of indigenous aviation professionals and experts; inability to take advantage of the favourable geographical location, and demographic advantages of Nigeria in the West African sub-region”, were some of the challenges.
“Also, a total absence of maintenance and repair organisations (MROs) with the attendant drain on foreign exchange had been the bane of the sector,” she added.
Oduah noted that with the prediction of giant aircraft manufacturers, Airbus, the sector must be repositioned to align with global developments.
“Airbus projects that the number of passengers will rise by 145 per cent between 2007 and 2026 from 2.5billion to 6billion,” she said, adding that “air transport will directly employ about 8.5 million people and contribute $1trillion to world GDP.
“Aviation, its supply chain and the spending of employees in these businesses, will support 23 million jobs and contribute $2.6trillion of GDP,” she stressed.
“In relation to tourism, aviation will sustain 50million jobs and pump $3.6trillion into GDP; even more when you consider the impact of other industries dependent on aviation that are harder to measure,” she assured.