LAGOS, Oct. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- The Nigerian government said here Thursday that it would attain 50 percent local content in the oil and gas industry by 2010.

    Samuel Ebika, director general of Nigeria's Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), told reporters that the country would reach 40 percent in local Medium Level Technology Input (MLTI) by 2006, which is expected to rise to 50 percent by 2010.

    Nigeria, the biggest oil exporter in Africa, uses local contentto measure the degree of participation of Nigerians in the oil andgas sector. It is applied to measure local capacity in the execution of oil and gas contracts as well as access of the employment of the local people relative to foreigners in the sector.

    The director general put local content in the sector at 18 percent for the time being.

    According to a recent report issued by the Nigerian Ministry ofPetroleum Resources, less than 10 percent of the country's over 8 billion dollars annual oil and gas projects were handled by the local people.

    As a way of raising local content, Ebika said, the government has established the Petroleum Technical Development Fund to provide financial support for the training of indigenous labor on highly skilled areas of the oil and gas sector.

    He pointed out that the objective was to prepare the workers for executing independently the most challenging and sophisticatedoil and gas contracts.

    The PTI is receiving technical support from the United States in the training of local professionals as efforts to realize its local content plan by 2010, Ebika added.

    The PTI established in 1972 is responsible for developing the technical and managerial capabilities of local operators in the oil and gas sector. Enditem