Industry
Industrial activities are responsible for only a tiny portion of Comoran economic activity—about 5 percent of GDP in 1994. Principal industries are those that involve processing cash crops for export: preparing vanilla and distilling ylang-ylang into perfume essence. These activities were once controlled almost entirely by French companies, but as they closed unprofitable plantations, individual farmers set up many small, inefficient distilleries.
Comorans also produce handicrafts for export.
Other industries are small and geared to internal markets: sawmills, printing, carpentry, and the production of shoes, plastics, yogurt, handicrafts (such as the jewelry exchanged as part of the grand marriage), and small fishing boats.
Several factors provide major obstacles to the growth of industry: the islands' geographically isolated position, their distance from each other, a scarcity of raw materials and skilled labor, and the high cost of electricity (energy is produced by hydropower, imported petroleum, and wood products) and transportation. Value added in industry slowly declined throughout the 1980s.
Read more about this topic: Economy Of Comoros
Famous quotes containing the word industry:
“... we’re not out to benefit society, to remold existence, to make industry safe for anyone except ourselves, to give any small peoples except ourselves their rights. We’re not out for submerged tenths, we’re not going to suffer over how the other half lives. We’re out for Mary’s job and Luella’s art, and Barbara’s independence and the rest of our individual careers and desires.”
—Anne O’Hagan (1869–?)
“Do not put off your work until tomorrow and the day after. For the sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor the one who puts off his work; industry aids work, but the man who puts off work always wrestles with disaster.”
—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)