State, Resources and the Development of Modern Manufacturing in Zambia, 1924-1973

Abstract

This dissertation examines the modern manufacturing history of Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia), focusing on the period when it was administrated as a British protectorate, 1924-1964, until the full nationalization of mining and manufacturing companies in 1973. Many studies have considered the contribution of manufacturing output to the gross domestic product (GDP) of Zambia, 5.5% in 1960, to be significantly lower than in similarly mineral-rich neighbouring countries with leading manufacturing outputs, specifically Belgian Congo, Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, which had output levels in 1960 of 14%, 16% and 21%, respectively. However, as this dissertation argues, those evaluating the manufacturing output of Zambia failed to include the output of non-ferrous metals processing; thus, many studies have underestimated the level of modern manufacturing during the colonial period and the first decade following Zambia’s independence from Britain. The dissertation, therefore, argues that the modern manufacturing history of Zambia, or generally in Sub-Saharan Africa, cannot be interpreted by the degree of state intervention or by the market size alone. The framework addressed here is the interplay of institutions, factor endowments and local, regional and global economic relationships. This would underline how the output of modern manufacturing has been underestimated by excluding a major constituent of Zambian manufacturing, basic non-ferrous processing. This omission has led to an immense and significant gap in the literature, which is filled here. The dissertation offers some major contributions to the historiography of the region with implications for the history of industrialisation in Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. First, the study used the international Standard Industrial Classification system (SIC), which classifies the smelting and refining of non-ferrous metals in modern manufacturing, to understand the underexplored history of the basic processing industry of copper in Zambia. This is significant because it shows that the output of modern manufacturing has been underestimated by excluding basic non-ferrous processing, a major constituent of Zambian manufacturing. This fills an immense gap in the literature; the history of secondary industries has not been adequately addressed. Increasing knowledge of the added value of the copper industry and copper-related industrial activities in Zambia helps in understanding the major actors and forces that enhanced or undermined diversification of the industrial base in Zambia, potentially eliminating its dependency on copper. After independence, state policy was a determining factor in industrial history. However, after short-lived successful state participation with the private sector in industrial ventures, the government enacted excessively interventionist policies that wasted Zambia’s comparative advantage in copper and created a foreign reserves crisis.