Business News of Saturday, 22 September 2018
Source: thebftonline.com
2018-09-22
Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
The Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) and Akosombo Textiles Limited (ATL) are back in operation following government’s intervention, Vice-President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has revealed.
He said through the provision of incentives to both local and foreign industries, the two well-known industries which had shut-down because of high production cost, have been revived – with many other dormant industries also at various stages of revival.
“Special industry-tailored policies and programmes are also being implemented, with a view to ensuring that newly-revived companies not only find their feet but also contribute to national development and into the overall plan for increased value-addition to ensure greater earnings,” Dr. Bawumia said in Accra.
He added that: “In the case of VALCO, for instance, Parliament has passed a law to establish the Ghana Integrated Bauxite and Aluminum Development Corporation in order to build a complete value chain for the mining, refining and smelting of Ghana’s bauxite to ensure value addition so we earn more from the exploitation of our natural resources.
“This is a multi-billion value chain, and VALCO is a key part of that value chain so and we hope to get it operating at 100 percent soon,” he said.
ATL, for example, had been dead, he added, but government through a broader plan to transform and industrialise the Ghanaian economy has been able to revive it – and the textile manufacturer has started operating at a very appreciable capacity.
To boost ATL’s production, he said, the company has been contracted to provide uniforms for all recruits of the Nation Builders Corp (NABCO).
“As you all know, we are going to be recruiting 100,000 graduates under NABCO in a few weeks. The 100,000 graduates will have some uniforms, and we are making sure that those uniforms are produced in Ghana, and so ATL is producing those uniforms.
“Once the uniforms are produced, as you know, each constituency is going to provide about 350 graduates for NABCO. We are also insisting that the local tailors in those constituencies are the ones who are going to sew the uniforms, so we can have some economic activities at that level too,” he explained.
The Vice-President, who was speaking at the opening of a three-day Ghana Industrial Summit and Exhibition on the theme ‘International Partnerships for Value-Added Industrial and Local Content Development’, organised by the Association of Ghana Industries, said the Akufo-Addo led-government’s focus is to support industries in creating sustainable jobs.
In pursuance of this, he noted that the ‘One District, One Factory’ will bring about rural industrialisation and ensure value addition to primary products, while providing jobs and growing the national economy.
To ensure value addition is also being examined for the oil and the petro-chemical industry, as well as iron-ore deposits in the Northern Region, he said government will extend the Western and Eastern spines of the railway network to Paga and Hamile.
This, he indicated, is to enable setting-up of industries in the area, with government keen to ensure local Ghanaian participation in the extraction and exploitation of natural resources.