Banks and Money, Automobiles and Roads, Industry in Africa, Two Courses of Action. Агафонова И.Г. - 11 стр.

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gions in search of food, water and pasture held back its development and made Africa
the very sick child of the international economy.
      The pattern of industry in Africa at present doesn’t differ much from that in
1960, which is given below in view of the next two decades.
      Africa in 1960 accounted for about 8 per cent of the world’s population (273
million out of 3,000 million), Its average income per head (US dollars about 110–
120) was about one-twelfth of that of the average of the industrialized countries. Al-
though it possesses 28 per cent of the estimated world electric power potential it had
only one per cent of installed capacity. Over half of its industry was accounted for by
mining for export, compared with 8 per cent in the industrialized countries. Total Af-
rican employment in mining and manufacturing taken together was only one and a
half million. In most African countries manufacturing accounted for only a few per
cent of GDP. At current prices, while output per head in agriculture (in terms of total
population) was three times as much in the industrialized countries as in Africa, it
was thirty times as much in industry.
      It is possible, on the basis of some 140-150 industries, classified under ten in-
dustrial groupings, to produce an approximate picture of the present state of industrial
development. The groupings are: food textiles and allied industries, forest industries,
non-metallic minerals, metals, chemicals and fertilizers, and transport equipment.
These groupings cover not only the whole range of industry already installed in at
least one African country but all that is likely to be possible for the next two decades.
The 140–150 industries covered are in a sense arbitrary. A more detailed breakdown
is theoretically possible. All that can be said is that the same breakdown has been
employed throughout. The picture is open to an obvious objection, that a given indus-
try in one country may mean one small plant and, in another, a considerable number
of plants. Nevertheless, this approach has the merit, at least, of showing the industrial
structure, actual or potential, in each country.
      Bearing in mind the above-mentioned limitations, it may be noted that the
number of industries installed in all 36 independent countries of Africa in mid-1960,
together with Mauritius and Rhodesia, varies from 115 in the UAR to 3 in Maurita-