This is from The Economist:
Uganda’s main advantages, for the moment, are cheap cotton and labour, and preferential access to American and European markets. When exporting to the rich world “Africa has an 18-35% duty advantage over any other continent”, says Nick Earlham, a shareholder in WUCC and in Fine Spinners. “It’s very competitive.”
Textile workers in Kampala earn about $85 a month, compared with $150 in Kenya and $108 in Vietnam, never mind up to $700 in China. But these savings are offset by problems in almost every other sphere. Power cuts keep plunging the factory into darkness, and an erratic supply of steam to the dyeing machines makes it hard to ensure that each batch of fabric looks alike.
Textiles appear to be a low hanging fruit as far as creating mass employment in African states is concerned. And, at least for now, they will remain immune from the threat of mechanization:
Robots are not yet much good at fiddly sewing jobs on floppy fabric; less than 0.1% of the world’s industrial robots are in the clothing trade.
Lastly, while production levels have not increased significantly over the last decade, FAO data (see below) do suggest a non-trivial increase in productivity (yield/ha) in Uganda’s cotton sector. This outcome could be a result of a myriad causes, but it is in line with recent research by Bates and Block (2013) showing increased agricultural productivity in African states that experienced real exposure to competitive electoral politics.
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