9 ms·

Actually I think, the most ideal countries to expand manufacturing to are African countries, they have some of the same advantages once china had. 1. Mineral R

Actually I think, the most ideal countries to expand manufacturing to are African countries, they have some of the same advantages once china had. 1. Mineral Resources. 2. Cheap Labour. 3. High Density of Lanthanide and Actinide group minerals. China also has a fourth advantage which is a good mix of Production, Manufacturing and Electronics Engineers. Which Africa doesn't have. On the other hand India doesn't have the raw mineral resources required to do long term manufacturing. For instance India doesn't have the ideal coal quality to produce steel, India imports 90% of its Anthracite from Australia. So the ideal situation in my view would be to setup manufacturing hub in African countries. Hire Chinese/Indian/American/Russian manufacturing Engineers and the rich mineral resources in African countries. This would fuel the growth of the world for next few decades. Though one thing to notice African countries may or may not have the rare earth metals but the probability if explored is quite high.

tesseracted 6y ago
Chinese people are also relatively intelligent. That is relevant, I think.
- hungryhobo 6y ago
  I think it has more to do with the culture around emphasis on education rather than pure intelligence
  - tasogare 6y ago
    And culture around work too. I’ve a family member who worked on setting up a factory in an African country in post-colonial time and the project advanced very very slowly. Why? Because the workers and locals were stealing some pipes that were mandatory for the project. Also the second any worker was not under surveillance he was goofing around. Part of his job was literally to wake up workers and tell them to work. From what I’ve seen in Asia, this is not a problem.
- wow_no 6y ago
  This is grade A racism
  - ilikeerp 6y ago
    I worked in South Africa for 7 years. A large amount of those observations (about workers) were true in RSA too. We'd usually hire someone that meets the various quota laws then a foreign contractor to do that full time persons job. This was not the original intention and we often reviewed hiring practices etc to ensure the local person was good enough but God damn.... What an 'interesting' labour market.
- cko 6y ago
  As an ethnic Chinese, I have to question that. Is this based on your observations of first and second generation Chinese immigrants in the West? In which case, wouldn't there be selection bias involved?
  - throay423432 6y ago
    These sentiments are based on a 'scientific' world average IQ score; India is at 82 while China is at 105. I think most popularly, these were used by the White supremacist, Stephen Molyneux to justify the colonization of both India and Africa; it shouldn't be surprising to see it used in other dick-measurement... ahem 'eugenics' contests.
    - tesseracted 6y ago
      I'm actually Indian, have no interest in aggrandizing one group over another, don't know who Stephen Molyneux is, and don't care about white supremacy & colonialism or think it relevant to my point that intelligence and organized behavior is more apparent in China than it is in Africa. Many people who, admittedly after a lot of pretense and equivocation, agree that they care about what is effectively intelligence in hiring engineers are too arrogant to see that working in a factory and making sure the water mains are working also require thoughtful competence.
      - distances 6y ago
        You may want to be aware that in western groups any talk about national or racial intelligence is usually considered pure racism. I assume it's not like that in India; I've also had a short discussion about this earlier with an Indian colleague when the topic of intelligence somehow came up.
        cko 6y ago
        If there is some sort of ethnic basis for differences in intelligence (independent of environmental factors such as poverty, culture, etc.) what would be the practical implications of this data? It seems to me that in the future, economic value will be correlated with the ability to work with increasingly abstract things (which I assume IQ is trying to measure). Wouldn't the natural tendency to value human worth based on their IQ? Of course not, you might say. But imagine there's some future with a permanent underclass of lower IQ people, subsidized by very high marginal tax rates / UBI. I can see our human nature justify some sort of social Darwinist policies. Edit: what a weird tangent this thread has taken.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throay423432 6y ago
I understand it is 'understood' that India is typically placed higher than Africa in the hierarchy of countries, owing to the success of their emigres. However, in reality, barring these colonial era 'Macaulay's children' (ala ICS officers who swore by the Queen} India and Africa actually have very similar development indicators. Unless, India sorts out its colonized education system, which ultimately is geared more towards shipping labor off to other countries, and focuses on policy reforms to make industrialization sustainable without paying politicians hundreds of millions in bribes, there's actually a good chance that it'll fall behind Africa as well.
- harichinnan 6y ago
  They do teach mathematics in India well though. Indian expat population is a small percentage of what's back home. India has close to 1.4 billion population. Indian diaspora in other countries would be much less than 100 million. So that disproves your theory that Indian education is geared towards exporting labor. You might've been blindsided by India IT expats living in West. That came out because of focus on IT education.
  - entha_saava 6y ago
    Can confirm. Once there was demand for IT because of outsourcing, everyone studied CSE and most of them didn't have interest in it, obviously. This explains the quality of work outsourced to sweatshops like Infosys and TCS.
- cjsaltlake 6y ago
  India is a single country, with a relatively well established national identity (obviously not perfect!, but enough for people to work and live in the same area), and a relatively stable government. Most African countries are still in flux in a huge way, and are just barely starting to establish stable national identities after decades of civil war.
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    Kashmir, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland would like a word with you
achow 6y ago
The main issue anywhere is the foresight and tenacity of the political (ruling) class. They have to do things which are long term by cutting back on short term and populist decisions. That is one thing that is holding even India back. In democratic setup it is very difficult to take a long term view particularly when that comes with short term pain - the govt would be out in next election. Africa should learn both from countries like China, Singapore and also from countries like India. Otherwise I do agree that Africa is well placed to be the next manufacturing hub due to its cheap labor, mineral resources, coastlines etc.
- imnewtohn 6y ago
  > That is one thing that is holding even India back. In democratic setup it is very difficult to take a long term view particularly when that comes with short term pain - the govt would be out in next election. Africa should learn both from countries like China, Singapore... What do you mean, become autocratic/centralized/...or whatever other word you want to choose. That's a quick one way ticket to getting invaded and thrown out by the US government.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    The US doesn't care if you're autocratic; they've propped up and outright installed plenty of dictators.
    - atlasunshrugged 6y ago
      You're right, but it's an awfully useful pretense for America to invade you if you're not "democratic"
      - monocasa 6y ago
        That's just been completely orthogonal. Autocrats that toe the line get to stay in power; democracies that don't get military coups.
jariel 6y ago
Those are not in the 'top 10' things required to support an electronics manufacturing base. Africa is the last place any electronics are going to be made, and it's completely unsuitable to their situation, at least currently. Manufacturing any kind of electronics any scale requires a fair bit of sophistication. There is a lot of know how in putting together lines, knowing what to optimise, managing supply chains. I just got some quotes from various parties, they all had to have intimate, Engineering level understanding of the system, they all switched out parts, recommended alterations. They sometimes use expensive gear. Factories in China have labour, but they also have educated professionals. They rely on an entire system of sub-contractors, suppliers etc. Even before you get to that, in Africa you have: - The electricity grid is inconsistent. - Basic things like water supply, air conditioning systems, HVAC is inconsistent, let alone trying to support a proper clean room. - Vehicle repair and maintenance can be hard. - Internet is inconsistent - Financial system is not fully coherent, financial services for many things don't exist. - Physical infrastructure (roads, buildings) is iffy everywhere. - Huge amounts of petty theft: things left unlocked will be stolen. - Massive corruption, payments to local grafters, police, politicians. - Political climate is unstable, politicians may promise something, never happens, want a 'cut' of your business. - Legal system undeveloped, lacking in transparency, commercial courts no well understood. - Many apps and services we take for granted don't operate in Africa. Forget the elevated level of knowledge required to staff the front-office of a real factory. Even if you could, the concept of 'employment' and 'basic level of professionalism' is not widespread. Get people to show up consistently, get them to work together, plan complicated products, communicate with individuals in a variety of nations. Bono started a clothing line to specifically have stuff made in Africa, but even that basic textile effort did not work. The Chinese invest in African for minerals etc. they bring in their own workers (why do they do this if African wages are lower?). Africa is mostly very underdeveloped right across the board in the terms we understand it. They're not at the level necessary to take on basic manufacturing. Their hope will be to develop natural resources in an intelligent way, like Botswana as a great example. I think Vietnam, Philipenes, eventually Malaysia are more likely suited for electronics manufacturing, especially because it's going to be driven by Chinese leadership. Same for India: Foxconn maybe can pull it off, because they have expansive operational knowledge, there are educated people in India even if they can't fathom yet how to do that level of work and systems are not suited to it. India does very well in software - partly because it doesn't require expansive networks or an 'industrial base', it can grow up from 'small spots' of talent, with limited dependency on the environs. You can still have a 'great software shop' surrounded by corruption and degrees of dysfunction, you can't build electronics manufacturing base like this. Here is some data on African manufacturing [1], notice it's fairly low level stuff: plastics, beverage, chemicals, food processing etc.. [1] https://set.odi.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Export-Based-Manufacturing-in-Africa_Full-paper.pdf https://set.odi.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Export-Based-...
dehrmann 6y ago
I'd think container shipping is so cheap that 2 will almost always outweigh 1 and 3.
MrsPeaches 6y ago
> So the ideal situation in my view would be to setup manufacturing hub in African countries. Hire Chinese/Indian/American/Russian manufacturing Engineers and the rich mineral resources in African countries. Wow, neocolonialism much? This sort of extractive thinking is exactly the reason that countries in Africa remain some of the poorest in the world. Which companies do you think will be bringing in these foreign workers? Do you expect them to settle there? How many counties can you name for whom bringing large numbers of foreign knowledge workers worked to build up a a strong manufacturing core (apart from maybe operation paper clip [1])? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
- tixocloud 6y ago
  There is opportunity to be somewhere in the middle ground that can help lift the wealth of a 3rd world country. In the case of Malaysia, the country focused heavily on manufacturing for foreign entities but was structured as joint ventures with the goal to retain knowledge within the country. Many industrialised nations saw this as “protectionism” as capital flowing in without flow out as easily and you are bounded by many restrictions. However, for citizens within the country, quality of life increased because of these policies.
  - MrsPeaches 6y ago
    Thanks, that sounds like an interesting example. Do you have any links to where I can read more about the policies? When was this?
    - tixocloud 6y ago
      I’ll have to do some research but I can drop you an email once I find some. This was roughly around 80s and 90s. There was a vision to become a first-world nation by 2020.
      - DarthGhandi 6y ago
        Malaysia's goals backfired badly on that account. Most of the manufacturing was in Penang, dubbed the Silicon Valley of the East for a while. Some might remember most of their chips and RAM having "Made in Malaysia" on them through the 90/00's, all from one little area. But the country squandered the opportunity due to racial divides and the federal government's dislike of the Chinese-Malay majority on the island, a place that very much resembled Singapore's demographics and ironically tried to secede at the same time but was shot down due to the Malaysian government considering it vitally important unlike Singapore (who then went from the one of the poorest countries on Earth to the richest despite absolutely no natural resources), the years after weren't much better, they never really ever wanted it to succeed too much and consistently denied appropriate amounts of federal funding despite the population levels. It's one of the few states in the country where a leader who isn't ethnic-Malay is legally allowed to get the job. Many don't like this situation as Malay supremacy is written into the constitution and is still deeply engrained into the national psyche. An Indian or Chinese leader makes many uncomfortable. Fast forward a few decades and there's still a reasonable contingent of manufacturing around but advanced fabs have long left, somewhat surprisingly to more expensive shores like Taiwan, SK and China, nowadays some silicon is made elsewhere and shipped into Malaysia for assembly despite the vast amount of infrastructure, foreign skillsets and supply chains built up over 30 years. At one point long ago one third of all of the exports out of the country was cpus. Quite impressive for a SE Asian country with a large amount of natural resources. Sandisk and some other storage manufacturers are still around but there's the feeling the island never got to see it's full potential and was never capitalized on. The government tried to replicate this recently in a more "Malay friendly" province 20km outside of KL renamed as Cyberjaya (literally cybersuccess). It's widely mocked as a failure across the political spectrum to this day, it only ended up housing some DC's utilizing cheap coal fired power in a tropical climate and some international call centers despite huge amounts of government subsidies trying to lure in innovation.
cm2187 6y ago
I think you should add to your list political stability, infrastructures (including basic things like stable electricity supply) and a cooperative workforce.
- formercoder 6y ago
  And acceptable levels of currency risk.
pythonwizz 6y ago
"1. Mineral Resources." This is the first time I heard this. Source that this is/was important? If it is, why not Brazil? "2. Cheap Labour." I am not sure that African countries are so much cheaper than India. Also, you need educated people too, something that is not available in Africa, at least not in quantities. 3. High Density of Lanthanide and Actinide group minerals. Why is this necessary? Source? China has: 1. Very educated people (most communist countries had the highest literacy rate) 2. A very supportive government 3. A huge market with the necessary infrastructure, starting from Universities, Airports, roads, trains... 4. Clustering of industries. The phenomenon of China can not easily be repeated. It is nearly impossible in Africa: 1. Uneducated people 2. Tribal societies 3. Corrupt governments 4. Lack of infrastructure Look at a map. If it is a "non-integrating gap country", it won't be the next China.
- pankajdoharey 6y ago
  China is a great place for manufacturing which is why it succeeded. But the next place has to be surely cheaper than china. The average salaries have increased in china, but African countries do have same advantages as China. The ideal mix as I proposed could be African Resources + Chinese Engineers + Scientists etc ... More than my answers I think you need this http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html Once you learn that google is one step away to find the answers to your questions.
shwoopdiwoop 6y ago
One major advantage that China has is an insanely good transportation and logistics network. Anything you need for production, you can get in a very short time and large quantities. I can see how population density would be a huge factor when it comes to how feasible it is to establish and develop these networks.
- godelmachine 6y ago
  Even India can be at par in supple chain logistics if she puts her mind to it. Prime Minister Modi has spoken about it in his address to the nation.
costcopizza 6y ago
This is awesome. Can’t wait to lift multiple African nations out of poverty and have my iPhone stay at a reasonable price.
nine_zeros 6y ago
India is perfect for global economic growth in general. India has a massive population that has massive consumer needs. However, they cannot produce everything all by themselves. Partly because of mineral resources, partly because of education and partly because of land crunch. Which means, when they industrialize more, they need to import more. Which aids growth of countries exporting to India. USA used to play that role until recently but cannot take it anymore for various political and non-political reasons. If anything, most of the developed world should be very happy that India is developing the way it is because it aids their own industries. African countries will get there some day as well, but they would do much much better by having a unified bloc like EU.
- pankajdoharey 6y ago
  What more can i say i am from India, and I can tell you a number of Indian Industries have closed down because the rate at which we procure raw materials, Chinese can produce a finished product at that price. Almost a decade ago we had a flourishing Lock Industry, but when Chinese lock manufacturers entered the Indian market our manufacturers couldn't compete. Chinese could produce locks at a price for which we couldn't even produce steel. In a matter of years most lock manufacturers closed down. Now most distributors just import locks from China. Indian steel manufacturers started producing high grade steel for special applications to survive in the market. Because it was clear we cannot compete with china at volume pricing for low grade steel.
  - ejanus 6y ago
    Are you sure that Chinese government didn't subsidize their companies?
    - pankajdoharey 6y ago
      Could be I have no way of knowing that.
YetAnotherNick 6y ago
I think mineral transportation cost would just be an error term in accounting for per phone build cost. This 100 gram phone costs $500. Also cheap labour doesn't mean cheap in the overall sense. You would have to hire international workers at much higher rate, eg Emirates pays twice to pilots compared to US salaries. Also logistics of other parts will be more expensive. India is just on the verge of crossing the barrier where you could mostly do with local talent and local logistics. Africa is far from crossing that barrier.

tesseracted 6y ago

Chinese people are also relatively intelligent. That is relevant, I think.

hungryhobo 6y ago
I think it has more to do with the culture around emphasis on education rather than pure intelligence
- tasogare 6y ago
  And culture around work too. I’ve a family member who worked on setting up a factory in an African country in post-colonial time and the project advanced very very slowly. Why? Because the workers and locals were stealing some pipes that were mandatory for the project. Also the second any worker was not under surveillance he was goofing around. Part of his job was literally to wake up workers and tell them to work. From what I’ve seen in Asia, this is not a problem.
wow_no 6y ago
This is grade A racism
- ilikeerp 6y ago
  I worked in South Africa for 7 years. A large amount of those observations (about workers) were true in RSA too. We'd usually hire someone that meets the various quota laws then a foreign contractor to do that full time persons job. This was not the original intention and we often reviewed hiring practices etc to ensure the local person was good enough but God damn.... What an 'interesting' labour market.
cko 6y ago
As an ethnic Chinese, I have to question that. Is this based on your observations of first and second generation Chinese immigrants in the West? In which case, wouldn't there be selection bias involved?
- throay423432 6y ago
  These sentiments are based on a 'scientific' world average IQ score; India is at 82 while China is at 105. I think most popularly, these were used by the White supremacist, Stephen Molyneux to justify the colonization of both India and Africa; it shouldn't be surprising to see it used in other dick-measurement... ahem 'eugenics' contests.
  - tesseracted 6y ago
    I'm actually Indian, have no interest in aggrandizing one group over another, don't know who Stephen Molyneux is, and don't care about white supremacy & colonialism or think it relevant to my point that intelligence and organized behavior is more apparent in China than it is in Africa. Many people who, admittedly after a lot of pretense and equivocation, agree that they care about what is effectively intelligence in hiring engineers are too arrogant to see that working in a factory and making sure the water mains are working also require thoughtful competence.
    - distances 6y ago
      You may want to be aware that in western groups any talk about national or racial intelligence is usually considered pure racism. I assume it's not like that in India; I've also had a short discussion about this earlier with an Indian colleague when the topic of intelligence somehow came up.
      - cko 6y ago
        If there is some sort of ethnic basis for differences in intelligence (independent of environmental factors such as poverty, culture, etc.) what would be the practical implications of this data? It seems to me that in the future, economic value will be correlated with the ability to work with increasingly abstract things (which I assume IQ is trying to measure). Wouldn't the natural tendency to value human worth based on their IQ? Of course not, you might say. But imagine there's some future with a permanent underclass of lower IQ people, subsidized by very high marginal tax rates / UBI. I can see our human nature justify some sort of social Darwinist policies. Edit: what a weird tangent this thread has taken.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

throay423432 6y ago

I understand it is 'understood' that India is typically placed higher than Africa in the hierarchy of countries, owing to the success of their emigres. However, in reality, barring these colonial era 'Macaulay's children' (ala ICS officers who swore by the Queen} India and Africa actually have very similar development indicators. Unless, India sorts out its colonized education system, which ultimately is geared more towards shipping labor off to other countries, and focuses on policy reforms to make industrialization sustainable without paying politicians hundreds of millions in bribes, there's actually a good chance that it'll fall behind Africa as well.

harichinnan 6y ago
They do teach mathematics in India well though. Indian expat population is a small percentage of what's back home. India has close to 1.4 billion population. Indian diaspora in other countries would be much less than 100 million. So that disproves your theory that Indian education is geared towards exporting labor. You might've been blindsided by India IT expats living in West. That came out because of focus on IT education.
- entha_saava 6y ago
  Can confirm. Once there was demand for IT because of outsourcing, everyone studied CSE and most of them didn't have interest in it, obviously. This explains the quality of work outsourced to sweatshops like Infosys and TCS.
cjsaltlake 6y ago
India is a single country, with a relatively well established national identity (obviously not perfect!, but enough for people to work and live in the same area), and a relatively stable government. Most African countries are still in flux in a huge way, and are just barely starting to establish stable national identities after decades of civil war.
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  Kashmir, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland would like a word with you

achow 6y ago

The main issue anywhere is the foresight and tenacity of the political (ruling) class. They have to do things which are long term by cutting back on short term and populist decisions. That is one thing that is holding even India back. In democratic setup it is very difficult to take a long term view particularly when that comes with short term pain - the govt would be out in next election. Africa should learn both from countries like China, Singapore and also from countries like India. Otherwise I do agree that Africa is well placed to be the next manufacturing hub due to its cheap labor, mineral resources, coastlines etc.

imnewtohn 6y ago
> That is one thing that is holding even India back. In democratic setup it is very difficult to take a long term view particularly when that comes with short term pain - the govt would be out in next election. Africa should learn both from countries like China, Singapore... What do you mean, become autocratic/centralized/...or whatever other word you want to choose. That's a quick one way ticket to getting invaded and thrown out by the US government.
- monocasa 6y ago
  The US doesn't care if you're autocratic; they've propped up and outright installed plenty of dictators.
  - atlasunshrugged 6y ago
    You're right, but it's an awfully useful pretense for America to invade you if you're not "democratic"
    - monocasa 6y ago
      That's just been completely orthogonal. Autocrats that toe the line get to stay in power; democracies that don't get military coups.

jariel 6y ago

Those are not in the 'top 10' things required to support an electronics manufacturing base. Africa is the last place any electronics are going to be made, and it's completely unsuitable to their situation, at least currently. Manufacturing any kind of electronics any scale requires a fair bit of sophistication. There is a lot of know how in putting together lines, knowing what to optimise, managing supply chains. I just got some quotes from various parties, they all had to have intimate, Engineering level understanding of the system, they all switched out parts, recommended alterations. They sometimes use expensive gear. Factories in China have labour, but they also have educated professionals. They rely on an entire system of sub-contractors, suppliers etc. Even before you get to that, in Africa you have: - The electricity grid is inconsistent. - Basic things like water supply, air conditioning systems, HVAC is inconsistent, let alone trying to support a proper clean room. - Vehicle repair and maintenance can be hard. - Internet is inconsistent - Financial system is not fully coherent, financial services for many things don't exist. - Physical infrastructure (roads, buildings) is iffy everywhere. - Huge amounts of petty theft: things left unlocked will be stolen. - Massive corruption, payments to local grafters, police, politicians. - Political climate is unstable, politicians may promise something, never happens, want a 'cut' of your business. - Legal system undeveloped, lacking in transparency, commercial courts no well understood. - Many apps and services we take for granted don't operate in Africa. Forget the elevated level of knowledge required to staff the front-office of a real factory. Even if you could, the concept of 'employment' and 'basic level of professionalism' is not widespread. Get people to show up consistently, get them to work together, plan complicated products, communicate with individuals in a variety of nations. Bono started a clothing line to specifically have stuff made in Africa, but even that basic textile effort did not work. The Chinese invest in African for minerals etc. they bring in their own workers (why do they do this if African wages are lower?). Africa is mostly very underdeveloped right across the board in the terms we understand it. They're not at the level necessary to take on basic manufacturing. Their hope will be to develop natural resources in an intelligent way, like Botswana as a great example. I think Vietnam, Philipenes, eventually Malaysia are more likely suited for electronics manufacturing, especially because it's going to be driven by Chinese leadership. Same for India: Foxconn maybe can pull it off, because they have expansive operational knowledge, there are educated people in India even if they can't fathom yet how to do that level of work and systems are not suited to it. India does very well in software - partly because it doesn't require expansive networks or an 'industrial base', it can grow up from 'small spots' of talent, with limited dependency on the environs. You can still have a 'great software shop' surrounded by corruption and degrees of dysfunction, you can't build electronics manufacturing base like this. Here is some data on African manufacturing [1], notice it's fairly low level stuff: plastics, beverage, chemicals, food processing etc.. [1] https://set.odi.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Export-Based-Manufacturing-in-Africa_Full-paper.pdf https://set.odi.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Export-Based-...

dehrmann 6y ago

I'd think container shipping is so cheap that 2 will almost always outweigh 1 and 3.

MrsPeaches 6y ago

> So the ideal situation in my view would be to setup manufacturing hub in African countries. Hire Chinese/Indian/American/Russian manufacturing Engineers and the rich mineral resources in African countries. Wow, neocolonialism much? This sort of extractive thinking is exactly the reason that countries in Africa remain some of the poorest in the world. Which companies do you think will be bringing in these foreign workers? Do you expect them to settle there? How many counties can you name for whom bringing large numbers of foreign knowledge workers worked to build up a a strong manufacturing core (apart from maybe operation paper clip [1])? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

tixocloud 6y ago
There is opportunity to be somewhere in the middle ground that can help lift the wealth of a 3rd world country. In the case of Malaysia, the country focused heavily on manufacturing for foreign entities but was structured as joint ventures with the goal to retain knowledge within the country. Many industrialised nations saw this as “protectionism” as capital flowing in without flow out as easily and you are bounded by many restrictions. However, for citizens within the country, quality of life increased because of these policies.
- MrsPeaches 6y ago
  Thanks, that sounds like an interesting example. Do you have any links to where I can read more about the policies? When was this?
  - tixocloud 6y ago
    I’ll have to do some research but I can drop you an email once I find some. This was roughly around 80s and 90s. There was a vision to become a first-world nation by 2020.
    - DarthGhandi 6y ago
      Malaysia's goals backfired badly on that account. Most of the manufacturing was in Penang, dubbed the Silicon Valley of the East for a while. Some might remember most of their chips and RAM having "Made in Malaysia" on them through the 90/00's, all from one little area. But the country squandered the opportunity due to racial divides and the federal government's dislike of the Chinese-Malay majority on the island, a place that very much resembled Singapore's demographics and ironically tried to secede at the same time but was shot down due to the Malaysian government considering it vitally important unlike Singapore (who then went from the one of the poorest countries on Earth to the richest despite absolutely no natural resources), the years after weren't much better, they never really ever wanted it to succeed too much and consistently denied appropriate amounts of federal funding despite the population levels. It's one of the few states in the country where a leader who isn't ethnic-Malay is legally allowed to get the job. Many don't like this situation as Malay supremacy is written into the constitution and is still deeply engrained into the national psyche. An Indian or Chinese leader makes many uncomfortable. Fast forward a few decades and there's still a reasonable contingent of manufacturing around but advanced fabs have long left, somewhat surprisingly to more expensive shores like Taiwan, SK and China, nowadays some silicon is made elsewhere and shipped into Malaysia for assembly despite the vast amount of infrastructure, foreign skillsets and supply chains built up over 30 years. At one point long ago one third of all of the exports out of the country was cpus. Quite impressive for a SE Asian country with a large amount of natural resources. Sandisk and some other storage manufacturers are still around but there's the feeling the island never got to see it's full potential and was never capitalized on. The government tried to replicate this recently in a more "Malay friendly" province 20km outside of KL renamed as Cyberjaya (literally cybersuccess). It's widely mocked as a failure across the political spectrum to this day, it only ended up housing some DC's utilizing cheap coal fired power in a tropical climate and some international call centers despite huge amounts of government subsidies trying to lure in innovation.

cm2187 6y ago

I think you should add to your list political stability, infrastructures (including basic things like stable electricity supply) and a cooperative workforce.

formercoder 6y ago
And acceptable levels of currency risk.

pythonwizz 6y ago

"1. Mineral Resources." This is the first time I heard this. Source that this is/was important? If it is, why not Brazil? "2. Cheap Labour." I am not sure that African countries are so much cheaper than India. Also, you need educated people too, something that is not available in Africa, at least not in quantities. 3. High Density of Lanthanide and Actinide group minerals. Why is this necessary? Source? China has: 1. Very educated people (most communist countries had the highest literacy rate) 2. A very supportive government 3. A huge market with the necessary infrastructure, starting from Universities, Airports, roads, trains... 4. Clustering of industries. The phenomenon of China can not easily be repeated. It is nearly impossible in Africa: 1. Uneducated people 2. Tribal societies 3. Corrupt governments 4. Lack of infrastructure Look at a map. If it is a "non-integrating gap country", it won't be the next China.

pankajdoharey 6y ago
China is a great place for manufacturing which is why it succeeded. But the next place has to be surely cheaper than china. The average salaries have increased in china, but African countries do have same advantages as China. The ideal mix as I proposed could be African Resources + Chinese Engineers + Scientists etc ... More than my answers I think you need this http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html Once you learn that google is one step away to find the answers to your questions.

shwoopdiwoop 6y ago

One major advantage that China has is an insanely good transportation and logistics network. Anything you need for production, you can get in a very short time and large quantities. I can see how population density would be a huge factor when it comes to how feasible it is to establish and develop these networks.

godelmachine 6y ago
Even India can be at par in supple chain logistics if she puts her mind to it. Prime Minister Modi has spoken about it in his address to the nation.

costcopizza 6y ago

This is awesome. Can’t wait to lift multiple African nations out of poverty and have my iPhone stay at a reasonable price.

nine_zeros 6y ago

India is perfect for global economic growth in general. India has a massive population that has massive consumer needs. However, they cannot produce everything all by themselves. Partly because of mineral resources, partly because of education and partly because of land crunch. Which means, when they industrialize more, they need to import more. Which aids growth of countries exporting to India. USA used to play that role until recently but cannot take it anymore for various political and non-political reasons. If anything, most of the developed world should be very happy that India is developing the way it is because it aids their own industries. African countries will get there some day as well, but they would do much much better by having a unified bloc like EU.

pankajdoharey 6y ago
What more can i say i am from India, and I can tell you a number of Indian Industries have closed down because the rate at which we procure raw materials, Chinese can produce a finished product at that price. Almost a decade ago we had a flourishing Lock Industry, but when Chinese lock manufacturers entered the Indian market our manufacturers couldn't compete. Chinese could produce locks at a price for which we couldn't even produce steel. In a matter of years most lock manufacturers closed down. Now most distributors just import locks from China. Indian steel manufacturers started producing high grade steel for special applications to survive in the market. Because it was clear we cannot compete with china at volume pricing for low grade steel.
- ejanus 6y ago
  Are you sure that Chinese government didn't subsidize their companies?
  - pankajdoharey 6y ago
    Could be I have no way of knowing that.

YetAnotherNick 6y ago

I think mineral transportation cost would just be an error term in accounting for per phone build cost. This 100 gram phone costs $500. Also cheap labour doesn't mean cheap in the overall sense. You would have to hire international workers at much higher rate, eg Emirates pays twice to pilots compared to US salaries. Also logistics of other parts will be more expensive. India is just on the verge of crossing the barrier where you could mostly do with local talent and local logistics. Africa is far from crossing that barrier.