Made in Africa - could Africa become the new manufacturing hub?

Over the past forty years, industry and business interests have moved increasingly from the developed to the developing world. Yet, with the emergence of East-Asia as a manufacturing powerhouse, Africa’s share of global manufacturing has fallen from about 3 percent in 1970 to less than 2 percent in 2014. Traditional concerns such as infrastructure, skills, and governance are important, they alone will not be sufficient for Africa to industrialise.

Carol Newman is an associate professor in the Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin. She has worked extensively on the microeconomics of development and is one of the authors of a recently published book "Made in Africa, Learning to Compete in Industry ».