Africa should embrace smart, advanced manufacturing to add greater value

Africa contributes about 2% of global GDP, but provides about 30% of global raw materials. However, if African manufacturers focus on adopting modern manufacturing technologies and creating smart factories, then much greater value can be added by local industry. When looking at manufacturing value-add by region, developed regions such as the EU and North America, and developed nations such as Australia and New Zealand, have a very large component of manufacturing value added to their GDP, manufacturing executive development nonprofit Toyota Wessels Institute for Manufacturing Studies (TWIMS) executive director Professor Theuns Pelser has said.