This WSJ article on the rise of small-scale manufacturing in Africa is good news all around, and will be assigned reading in my International Management class.
Highlights:
Why Africa doesn't make more stuff has been an enduring mystery of the global economy. As wages rose in manufacturing powerhouses such as China, many economists predicted that factories would flock to cheaper pools of labor in Africa, helping to spur the same sort of rapid industrial growth that lifted living standards across Asia.
On the role China may play:
Africa's industry isn't so different from the modest roots of China's own industrial revolution. In the 1980s, Chinese farmers invested in factories to make goods for rural consumers. Multinationals arrived later to fuel an export boom, according to Zhang Chunlin, an economist at the World Bank in Pretoria who specializes on private-sector development.
China's challenge was "to develop in an imperfect environment," says Mr. Zhang, who once worked at a village brick kiln in the northern China. "That is also Africa's challenge."
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