Technology and the Responses of Firms to Adjustment in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Industrialization began in Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia) in the first two decades of this century, very early by African standards. By the early 1940s Rhodesia had a comparatively sophisticated industrial base, with the only integrated iron and steel plant in SubSaharan Africa and a range of consumer and producer goods industries. Manufacturing accounted for 10 per cent of GDP and around 8 per cent of exports. Further import substitution took place before, during and after the Second World War. In 1953 the two Rhodesias (now Zambia and Zimbabwe) federated with Nyasaland (now Malawi), forming a common market. Southern Rhodesia became the location for most of the manufacturing serving the region.