We’ll peg 0.5% GDP for research — Osinbajo

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said 0.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Products (GDP) will be allocated to research and innovation in order to fast track meaningful development in the country.

The vice president stated this during the opening ceremony of 2021 Science and Technology Expo in Abuja on Monday.

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“We will allocate a minimum of 0.5% of our GDP to research and innovation as a way to fast-track meaningful development”, he said.

He said the federal government had made considerable improvements in the budgetary allocations to the science and technology ministry in the last few years.

“We are aware that only a few African countries  have met this target but as a result of the challenges of this economy, we will allocate a minimum of 0.5%  of our GDP to research and innovation as a way to  fast-track meaningful development.

“In February 2018, I issued Executive Order No 5 for local content development. With this, all ministries and p agencies were directed to engage our professionals in the planning, execution and design of all contracts and transactions reserved for all engineering and technology components.”