Trade Facilitation and African Industrialization in the New global Order: An Agenda for Action for Textile and Apparel Industry

Industrialization has driven the economic development of developed and emerging countries (UNIDO, 2009). In recent years the production of manufactured goods has been broken down into tasks by plants located in many countries, most of these increasingly in developing countries. Contrary to past trends, when industrialization required a comprehensive pool of production characteristics, a particular location simply needs to specialize in a small set of tasks that can be competitively undertaken along specific supply chains. This trend offers hope for Africa’s reindustrialization; a particular country could focus on the level of industrial agglomeration that would enable its firms reach a threshold above which it can lower the costs of production for manufactured exports and fully exploit its comparative advantage. In Africa, countries are too small for this to materialize unless viewed in the regional context that could nurture such agglomeration such as to facilitate a smooth integration in the world trading system. Against this backdrop, promoting a sound trade facilitation1 environment is crucial to guarantee essential transport and logistics infrastructures allowing firms to exploit economies of scale related to regional integration and connect efficiently to other segments of the industrial value chain.