Katsina — President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has assured Nigerians that the Federal Government was working hard to ensure that adverse effects of the global meltdown was greatly mitigated.

Yar'Adua, who was in Katsina State yesterday afternoon, to commission the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)'s ultra-modern branch office, said even though the world economy was in recession, government remanied committed to ensuring that its adverse effect is cushioned and made of less effect on Nigerians.

He said government recognised the global economic landscape's challenges, and that it would take the collective efforts of all in concert with development partners to ensure that the country remains on course towards realisation of the vision of making Nigeria one of the world's 20 most developed economies by the year 2020.

Yar'Adua, who commended initiative of the CBN to have its branch or currency centre in every state of the federation by the end of the year, expressed the hope that the branch networking would deepen intervention in the country's agricultural development efforts.

Earlier, CBN Governor, Professor Chukuma Soludo, said all 36 states of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, would each have a CBN branch before the end of this year, adding that 28 branches were presently in existence, while nine others are in the works.

Soludo allayed fears of the nation's economy going south as predicted by some pundits, expressed optimism that it is recouping in various sectors, and that there were plans to have the country's lower denomination- N50, N20, N10, and N5- circulated in the exchange market by the end of the year.

He averred that the CBN's entrepreneurship centre, which operates in three geo-political zones of the country, has trained about 18, 000 Nigerians to acquire basic skills, which is expected to create additional 750, 000 jobs in the next three years.