The Federal Government sought to make clarification that the Vision 2020 was not intended to make the economy of Nigeria one of the best economies in the world as erroneously believed by many.
This was part of the briefing of the Minister for National Planning, Dr ShamsudeenUsmanto State House journalists at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday.
Shamsudeen had taken turns with the Minister of Sports, Mr BolajiAbdullahi to explain the achievements and challenges of their respective ministries in 2012.
They were later joined at the briefing by the Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku.
Usman, in response to a question on whether the country was on course to achieve the Vision 2020 of the government, said that contrary to general belief, the target of the government was to make the nation’s economy one of the biggest by gross domestic product (GDP).
He said, “On Vision 2020, we are doing assessment as we go along. When we started, Nigeria was 44th in terms of Gross Domestic Product. Now we are 39th. We are making progress.
“What we said was that we are going to be one of the top economies by size of GDP, we did not say we will be one of the best economies.”
Usman said his ministry would produce the country’s 2012 report before June.
He said one of the ministry’s parastatals, the National Bureau of Statistics, achieved 100 per cent in the production of statistics during the year under review.
He added that the Centre for Management Development in Lagos also succeeded in training more than 12,000 public officials in the year under review.