The future economic development of sub-Saharan Africa depends crucially on improving the capabilities of private sector industry - yet accessible information on the current levels of industrial capability in these countries is limited and patchy. This volume on Ethiopia is the first in a planned series that sets out to record, industry by industry, "who makes what". Detailed industry profiles are accompanied by full descriptions of fifty leading industrial companies. What do they produce? How do they fit into domestic and international supply chains? And, most importantly, where and how did they acquire their current capabilities?
Along the way, there are some surprises.
• Only two of the largest domestic private companies began life as small manufacturers.
• A huge role is played in manufacturing by long-established trading companies that turned to manufacturing a generation after they began importing.
• The current stock of new foreign direct investment projects could generate as many jobs as the fifty leading companies profiled in these pages.
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"Africa is rightly ambitious to industrialize, yet discussion of industrial policy has been plagued by doctrinaire analysis resting on limited evidence. This study is grounded in detailed evidence of firms in a specific African context. It provides important new insights into the growth process that sweep away common preconceptions."
Paul Collier, Author of The Bottom Billion