The World Bank has agreed to partner the Federal Government in its efforts to create more jobs in the economy. This came after a meeting between the Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and World Bank President, Mr. Robert Zoellick. The minister and the World Bank chief discussed ways by which the Bretton Woods institution would assist Nigeria in boosting job creation, amongst others. The meeting, sources told THISDAY, was part of efforts by the Federal Government to make the World Bank and other development partners to support the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan. As part of the deal, the World Bank has agreed to work with the Federal Government to leverage the N50 billion job creation fund by helping to provide a very innovative and interesting competition for youths all over Nigeria. Also, the World Bank has agreed to assist the country in agriculture and manufacturing- the areas where the Federal Government has its priorities for job creation. One striking outcome of the meeting was the resolve of the bank to help attract businesses in China to relocate their manufacturing concerns to Nigeria, among other low-wage competitive countries, with a view to creating more jobs. “We have an extensive meeting with President Zoellick of the World Bank and his team and ours focused on the areas where the Nigerian government has its own priorities for job creation, such as agriculture, manufacturing. We actually talked to him about his recent trip to China where he spoke to the Chinese authorities and some business people in China to relocate some of their manufacturing outfits to low-wage competitive countries. “This is because China is becoming a higher production centre now and they are looking for a production centre now and they are looking for countries where there are lower wages and Nigeria is a possibility. So we talked about that. If we succeed in doing that, it will lead to about the job creation,” said Okonjo-Iweala who briefed journalists on the outcome of the meeting. Okonjo-Iweala said, leveraging the N50 billion job creation fund, “we are going to have those who have small businesses participating in this competition to see how they can expand their businesses with assistance coming from this fund. “Employ more people and put in business planning skills to make them more modern and innovative and therefore able to expand and become real enterprises within the economy that can create jobs for youths. “So youths employing youths- this is something we discussed with World Bank that they are helping us with.” The finance minister lamented that a lot of Nigerian youths, both those who graduated from universities as well as those unskilled, are roaming the street unemployed- the situation that she said, had contributed to pushing the unemployment rate to about 21 per cent. According to her, “We have three million youths not employed and so the job creation agenda is really focused on what government is doing to diversify the economy so as to employ the youths. The issue is to identify the sectors capable to create these jobs.” Okonjo-Iweala revealed that the mandate the Nigerian delegation led by her, for the annual meetings of the IMF/World Bank, came directly from President Jonathan. “In fact I had a very good conversation with the President before leaving and what we agreed is that we should really make sure that first, we present the progress Nigeria is making to try and restructure some of its challenges and focus on fast growth , creating jobs with the economy of Nigeria and particularly creating jobs to our youths that represent what we are doing to achieve this,” she noted.