ECA Policy Brief
Smart industrialization through trade in the context of Africa’s transformation
Africa’s experience with industrialization has been disappointing. Globally, the share of manufacturing in total output rises with per capita income until countries reach upper-middle-income status and declines as services become more prevalent at higher incomes (Newman, and others, 2016). This has not been the case in Africa. In 2014, Africa’s average share of manufacturing value added in gross domestic product (GDP) was 9.8 per cent, 3 percentage points less than the 12.8 per cent of 1990 (figure 1). The share of manufacturing exports in Africa’s total exports similarly declined from 25.6 per cent in 1995 to only 18.9 per cent in 2014.
