Advanced manufacturing offers faster path to industrialisation – CWEIC

By Ebenezer Chike Adjei NJOKU

Advanced manufacturing, particularly 3D printing (additive manufacturing), could offer Ghana – and by extension the rest of Africa – a faster and more practical route to industrialisation than traditional factory-led models.

This argument was advanced in an exclusive interview with Business & Financial Times (B&FT) by Samantha Cohen, chief executive of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council (CWEIC) following the Africa Prosperity Dialogue 2026 in Accra.

Mrs. Cohen said new technologies could help African economies shorten supply chains and address the ‘supply chain tax’ that currently costs African firms between 6 percent and 10 percent of their annual revenue due to logistics disruptions.

“Advanced manufacturing allows Africa to move past the ‘waiting room’ of traditional industrialisation. We are seeing a move toward a model where production is not just localised but immediate, removing the friction of geography that has historically hampered the continent’s growth,” she said.

Already, the global market for the 3D printing sector alone is on course to reach US$200billion by 2035 – with an annualised growth rate of 18 to 22 percent.

Advanced manufacturing – which includes the aforementioned 3D printing, industrial internet of things (IIoT) and digital twins – allows countries to bypass the massive capital outlays required by conventional factories.

While Africa holds roughly 30 percent of the world’s mineral reserves, it currently accounts for only three percent of value-added global manufacturing .

Technologies such as 3D printing enable smaller-scale, localised production that is closely aligned with demand.

Across the continent, efforts are being made to use powdered metals to manufacture industrial components. In specialised sectors, this technology can reduce the cost of a single complex component by as much as 75 percent.

More importantly, it slashes lead times for critical spare parts from four months to as little as four days… allowing infrastructure to remain operational rather than waiting weeks for imports.