Industry features textile manufacturing and the processing of agricultural products.
Growth in output in 1992-97 averaged less than the growth rate of the population. Growth has been held back by antigovernment strikes and demonstrations, a decline in world coffee demand, and the erratic commitment of the government to economic reform. Historically, Madagascar's principal export crops have been coffee, vanilla, and cloves. Coffee, which as recently as 1989, was Madagascar's largest earner of foreign exchange, is now a distant second, as both prices and exports have dropped sharply. Total coffee production has not increased appreciably since the late 1980s.