Even in the future, however, with better education, infrastructure and policies, the share of manufactures in exports will stay far lower in Africa than in Asia, which has fewer natural resources. Developed countries can also help by opening up their markets to African agricultural products, while another source of demand for Africa s primary exports will be from continued rapid growth in the land-scarce countries of Asia. This gives it a comparative advantage in labour-intensive manufactures such as garments and shoes whose production requires little skill or land. The region has a profitable sideline in software services, which in 1999 accounted for over 10 percent of India s exports. However, as long as South Asia s levels of education stay below those of most other regions, it will remain an exporter mainly of labour-intensive goods and services.
Exports are now low - less in total than Thai exports.
There is thus much scope for expansion. South Asia could thus capture a large share of the huge global garment market, earning foreign exchange to finance the imports it needs for modernisation, and creating many millions of jobs for unskilled workers, as happened in East Asia. To take advantage of this opportunity, however, big improvements will be needed in the region s transport infrastructure, from ports to rural roads, along with streamlining of the administrative procedures for exporting, importing and foreign investment. Africa and South Asia have in common low levels of income, education and exports, but they differ in the extent of their natural resources. Their prospects and strategies for export growth will thus take them down different paths.