Will Africa industrialise ?

I often wonder when I look at the lists of where multinationals have their offices whether Africa will ever industrialise.

So often you see, London, NY, Tokyo, but never Lagos, Nairobi or Accra. In the search for low cost manufacturing we have seen firms rush headlong to China and India, Brazil and Eastern Europe. Wages and prices there are starting to rise, its ever so slightly but it is noticeable. The move to these countries staved off large scale automation of manufacturing in the West by a couple of decades but it can't last forever. Will we now finally see firms move production to Africa to take advantage of the low wages or will they consider the political risk too high and instead decide to automate ?

I hope that the low wage economies of Asia stop being so in a decade or so and that firms have the will to move to Africa.

I wish funds like the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation would channel some of their money to aiding companies to invest in Africa by removing the political risk premium. The world would be if all continents got to participate in its economic activity.