Africa makes up 15 percent of the world’s population but contributes only about 3 percent of global manufacturing output, a gap that framed nearly every conversation at this year’s Manufacturing Indaba, where trade officials and industry leaders from across the continent spent two days asking a pointed question: what, exactly, should Africa borrow from China’s industrial rise and what should it leave behind?
The 2026 edition of the event, held under the theme “Made in Africa: Scaling Growth, Shaping Trade,” drew more than 500 participants to the Sandton Convention Centre for discussions on re-industrialization, investment and regional manufacturing cooperation. On the sidelines, Rhyan Injendi, Kenya’s commercial and trade attaché at the High Commission in Pretoria, pointed to strategic planning and consistent follow-through as the real lesson from Beijing’s experience. “If we want to achieve something in industrialization, we must first have a clear plan, supported by research and well-defined targets,” he said. “China plans first, develops a program of action, and then implements it step by step.”
Tapiwa Samanga, group CEO of the Production Technologies Association of South Africa, offered a more granular account drawn from a recent trip to Shanghai, describing China’s core strength as its ability to coordinate industrial development into full-fledged, globally competitive ecosystems rather than isolated factories. “We visited an area where there were about 3,000 globally competitive toolrooms,” he said. “That level of clustering makes it very difficult to compete.” Samanga argued that as Africa’s own consumer base keeps expanding, the continent should court Chinese investors in ways structured specifically to strengthen local industry, transfer technology and help African manufacturers plug into global value chains, rather than simply hosting assembly operations with limited spillover.
Muntanga Lindunda, CEO of the Zambia Association of Manufacturers, struck a note of caution alongside the enthusiasm. She said Africa should embrace innovation and automation to sharpen its competitiveness, while being clear-eyed that China’s development model cannot simply be copied wholesale. China’s advantage, she said, was built on large-scale production and continuous innovation sustained over decades. Experience African countries should adapt to their own circumstances, leaning on regional cooperation rather than attempting to replicate Beijing’s exact path.
The China comparisons fed into a broader argument running through this year’s Indaba: that Africa’s stalled industrialization is less a single leap than a staged climb and that the continent has repeatedly tried to skip straight to the finish line. Commentary around the event pointed to the region’s habit of framing industrial policy as a binary choice, keep exporting raw materials, or build full downstream manufacturing capacity, while skipping over the more immediately achievable middle step of partial processing. Morocco’s move into lithium-battery materials manufacturing at Jorf Lasfar and Botswana’s push to cut and polish more of its own rough diamonds domestically rather than exporting them raw, were cited as examples of exactly that intermediate stage paying off, generating revenue and building technical skills that can fund the next stage of industrial development.
South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, John Steenhuisen, told the opening session that manufacturing is the foundation of industrial development and that rebuilding the sector is essential for job creation, export growth and broader economic resilience. Other speakers pointed to the African Continental Free Trade Area as the mechanism that could make all of this pay off at scale. A Mozambican exhibitor said the AfCFTA is already pushing manufacturers to look beyond domestic markets, arguing that shared expertise and cross-border investment can help African companies compete more effectively and reduce reliance on imports.
The China comparisons at Sandton weren’t purely theoretical. Chinese capital and trade already shaped South Africa’s industrial base directly. China has been South Africa’s largest trading partner for 17 consecutive years, with two-way trade reaching $53.58 billion in 2025, and the two countries signed a framework economic partnership agreement in February 2026 that Chinese officials say will not require reciprocal tariff cuts from Pretoria. Just this week, Chinese and South African textile firms sealed a string of preliminary export deals at a Cape Town trade show, riding the momentum of China’s zero-tariff policy for African exports, which took effect May 1 and now covers a wide range of South African raw materials and manufactured goods.
That trade relationship sits alongside a broader strategic partnership dating to 1998 and elevated to comprehensive strategic partner status in 2010, with South Africa and China as founding members of BRICS. Chinese investment in South African manufacturing spans autos, mining equipment and electronics assembly, though analysts at Manufacturing Indaba and elsewhere have repeatedly flagged the same underlying tension Lindunda raised from Zambia: that the relationship still tilts toward South Africa exporting raw minerals and importing finished Chinese goods, a pattern industry leaders say the continent’s current push toward value-added, China-informed manufacturing is explicitly trying to reverse.
For officials like Injendi and Samanga, the message leaving Johannesburg was less about imitating China wholesale and more about borrowing its discipline, with clear targets, coordinated ecosystems and follow-through. Building an industrial path suited to Africa’s own resources, markets and stage of development.
