Manufacturing firms whose businesses are closely linked to Aluminium smelting firm, VALCO are excited about the resumption of operations by the firm. VALCO shut down its operations for nearly 2 years due to what officials explained was the unprofitability of continued production since the price of the metal had dropped so low on the commodity market. It therefore made no sense to continue production. The shut down seriously affected firms in the integrated Aluminum industry in the country, forcing some to virtually shut down. Managing Director of ALUWORKS, Kwesi Okoh told Joy Business the resumption of operations should improve the fortunes of his business as well as other players in the industry. “VALCO is a 200,000-tonne business and we take a maximum of 20,000 tonnes of that, the rest is exported. For us that is our whole usage so without them, we had to import raw material from outside Ghana, (raising our cost by forty per cent) so without VALCO we were really, really struggling to keep business going with the little money we had,” he said. He adds that this should mean a lot to the economy at large. Source: Joy Business/Ghana