Ghana on track to build integrated aluminium industry, creating jobs and boosting economy - Abu Jinapor

The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Hon. Samuel A. Jinapor, MP has expressed optimism over Ghana's quest to build an integrated aluminium industry.

According to him, the government is making steady progress in line with the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation Act, 2018 (Act 976), which establishes the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC) to promote and develop an integrated aluminum industry in the country.

Speaking at a two-day workshop organized by GIADEC, in partnership with the Strategic Anchor Industries Unit of the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the Minister emphasized the need to add value to Ghana's mineral resources to ensure optimal benefit. He revealed that Ghana has an estimated bauxite resource base of over nine hundred million metric tonnes (900,000,000Mt), capable of creating some two million sustainable jobs and generating over One Trillion US Dollars in revenue if fully integrated.

Mr. Jinapor urged participants at the workshop to bring their expertise to bear and come out with policy options and plans that will help build a robust, functioning, and vibrant downstream aluminum industry that contributes meaningfully to the national economy. The workshop brought together stakeholders in the aluminum industry to deliberate on policy options and implementation plans for the downstream aluminum industry. This follows an extensive research, data collection, and technical analysis of best practices across the world carried out by GIADEC and ODI.

GIADEC has, since its establishment, developed a Masterplan for the upstream sector, and is implementing its Four Project Agenda, which includes expanding the existing mine, building three additional mines, building refineries, and modernizing the Volta Aluminum Company (VALCO), with all four projects at various stages of implementation. The Minister revealed that it is necessary to prepare the downstream industry and make it ready to off-take products from the upstream industry.

He expressed Government’s optimism on the contribution of a fully-integrated aluminium industry to socio-economic development. “It is for this reason that in 2018, the President of the Republic, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, took that bold decision to establish, by an Act of Parliament, the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC), to promote and develop an integrated aluminium industry, here in our country,” the Minster said.

Participants at the workshop included senior officials of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Overseas Development Institute, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat, and companies in the upstream and downstream aluminum industry.