Are Manufacturing Exports the Key to Economic Success in Africa?

The poor performance of many African economies has been associatedwith low growth of exports in general and of manufacturing exportsin particular. The two most successful countries in Africa havebeen Botswana and Mauritius. In Botswana, rapid export growthfollowed the discovery of diamonds; in Mauritius, manufacturingexports played a major role. In this paper we draw on both macroand micro evidence from nine African countries to investigatewhether manufacturing exports are the key to success in Africa.We do this by posing three questions. First, how close is thelink between export and income growth? Second, is there evidencefrom these African countries that manufactured exports haveled to greater economic success? Third, what has limited thesuccess of firms in the manufacturing sector? We argue thatexport and income growth are very closely linked. However, thereis, for this sample of countries, no evidence that if theirexports are manufactures, growth rates are higher. We show thatthe factors that limit the success of African manufacturingfirms in exporting are their levels of efficiency and smallsize. We argue that the key to success in an area where Africahas a potential cost advantage — labour-intensive garments— is to enable large firms to use a more labour-intensivetechnology than is the case at present.