President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has assured that his administration would continue to revamp the nation's infrastructure, with a view to building a competitive advantage for all sectors of the nation's economy in global business.

He dropped this hint at the commencement of the First National Outsourcing Conference organised by World Bank in collaboration Outsourcing Development Initiative of Nigeria (ODIN) recently in Abuja, the President also restated government's commitment to promoting trade and integration with the rest of the world and drastically reduce the cost of doing business in the country.

Yar'Adua said as Africa's most populous nation and the 41st largest economy in the world, Nigeria has enormous potential, vibrant private sector, highly motivated entrepreneurs, vast agricultural lands and a large domestic market needed to compete effectively in the global market.

The President noted that in spite of massive physical infrastructure challenges facing the country, he was optimistic that the various steps being taken to address these problems would yield the desired dividends for Nigeria.

He argued that a nation's economic development could be accelerated by improvements in the country's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure, adding that no modern economy could thrive without an integral ICT base.

The president stated that outsourcing was a key component in the ITC-enabled service trade and that the global size of the global offshore outsourcing market in 2008 surpassed the $100 billion mark and had continued to grow at 30 per cent per annum.

He stressed that the global offshore market was huge and that the outsourcing industry has great potential for revenue generation, economic growth and technological advancement for Nigeria if well harnessed.

His words: "The Business Process Outsourcing sector has experienced unprecedented global growth fuelled primarily by advances in ICT, and intense competition brought about by globalisation offshore.

"Outsourcing would create thousands of new jobs in Nigeria, especially for women and youth. This will have huge multiplier effects on human capital and the quality of our domestic service industry."

The President, who was represented by the Minister of State for Finance, Aderemi Babalola, stressed that the current federal administration was committed to exploring all avenues and eager to support initiatives targeted at improving standards of living in Nigeria and setting the stage for the country to become a strong contender in the global economic marketplace.

He stated that due to finite nature of oil reserves and for Nigeria to fully realise its great potentials, the country must explore and embrace alternative sources of revenue generation that would lead to the much-needed diversification of its economic base.

The president said: "We are that seventh largest oil exporter in the world, in addition to our vast wealth of other natural resources, Nigeria's GDP stood at $294.8 billion as at 2007, with oil accounting for 20 per cent of the GDP and 95 per cent of foreign export earnings.

"The result is that we remain largely dependent on oil as a major source of revenue and Foreign Direct Investment."

Also speaking, World Bank Country Director, Mr. Onno Ruhl, said that the realisation of the Vision 2020 Agenda would require a drastic acceleration of growth, stressing that Nigeria has the potential to become an outsourcing destination of choice, hence the need to replicate what happened in India in the country.

Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili, noted that for the outsourcing industry to be fully realised in Nigeria, there must be concerted public and private sector participation.

She also stressed the need to create more awareness on the huge potentials in the outsourcing industry.