Samuel Abu Jinapor, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, has emphasised the need to develop the downstream aluminium industry in Ghana. He claimed that the nation has lost out on enormous cash and job prospects for young people by not doing so throughout the years.
The Minister emphasised the need to add value to Ghana's natural resources to secure maximum profit when speaking at a two-day workshop organised by GIADEC in collaboration with the Strategic Anchor Industries Unit of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). The workshop, which took place in Akosombo, sought stakeholders' feedback to create a policy framework and implementation strategy for a nationally integrated aluminium sector.
"This is a huge opportunity for companies to develop the downstream side of things. The missing component for us is the aluminium refining part of it. What we are doing now is preparing the policy environment, the incentive framework that will support the downstream industries that will be set up," said Samuel Abu Jinapor.
He said Ghana has an estimated bauxite resource base of over nine hundred million metric tonnes (900,000,000Mt). If adequately integrated, it could produce over one trillion US dollars in income and almost two million sustainable jobs.
The event was sponsored by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of the United Kingdom Government and organised by the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC) in collaboration with the Strategic Anchor Industries Unit of the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the ODI (formerly Overseas Development Institute).
“We are working in an integrated way. If you take the car assembly plants, nine manufacturing companies in Ghana producing cars for Ghanaian market and for export. In the future they will need aluminium products. Apart from the car industry, we are looking at construction, foil production and a whole raft of things. The global economy is in need of aluminium and we think establishing the integrated aluminium industry will propel us to lead in this direction,” added Samuel Abu Jinapor.
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