Introduction and Setting

This is a study of the impact of import liberalization on manufacturing technology in three countries of SubSaharan Africa: Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. These countries are opening up their economies to import competition as part of a broader strategy of policy reform and structural adjustment. Each is at a different stage of the liberalization process, and each starts with different bases of industrial and technological development. Each is ‘adjusting’ in the hope that exposure to market forces and the removal of the legacy of inefficient interventions will stimulate rapid industrial development and export growth. In each, as in much of Africa (the term is used here to refer to SubSaharan Africa), the response to liberalization has been weak, faltering and disappointing.