Prospects and Challenges of Industrial Development in Southern Africa: Lessons from Chinese Experience with Special Economic Zones

by Munetsi Madakufamba
Industrial development in Africa has been largely a national endeavour with little cooperation happening at the continent wide or sub-regional levels. Even the current model of African development entailing the integration of the many previously fragmented post-colonial polities into larger regional economic communities has mostly been for purposes of creating larger markets for trade, with little collective focus on the supply side aspects such as investment in industrial capability and economic infrastructure. In fact, industrialization strategies have only been either mentioned in passing, or have merely existed on paper, with little having been done to radically transform most African states into globally competitive industrial hubs for example in the manner that China has transformed itself in the last three decades.

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