Industrial location analysis of Sudan

Abstract

The present study is a modest attempt to analyse industrial location in Sudan, and to explain existing location patterns and industrial localization. Future industrial location trends are examined in the light of past and present development. The commitment to non-industrialisation in Sudan during the colonial regime has had a pronounced impact on the post independence spatial distribution of industry. Thus investment policies and development in the pre-independence period are investigated with reference to the set objectives and prevailing opportunities in Chapter Two. Private capital investment was insignificant compared with the public sector which was under taking 'commercial plantation' and infrastructural capital outlay. However, business and trade was the domain of private entrepreneurship. Public and private sectors were nonetheless complementary to each other and their activities were co-ordinated in what is termed the 'charter government system'. Structural transformation and economic growth (Chapter Three) is seen as a manifestation of this co-ordination and partnership. Planned non industrialisation, 'growth through trade', and primary export base are all attributed to the development endeavour of this period. An industrial location theory specific to developing countries is expounded in the Prime Base theory (Chapter Pour). Localization of industry according to this theory seems inevitable in many other prime bases of developing countries. In the second part, Sudan's industrial activity is investigated within the context of contemporary urban and regional development. In Chapter Five the spatial organisation of the industrial activity in the Prime Base is analysed in some detail, and the regional distribution and pattern of industry in Sudan is examined in Chapter Six. The emergence of secondary bases is seen as part of the economic process, and could be developed to realise industrial regionalisation. Chapter Seven is a case study of cotton-seed oil to test existing localization as against the 'theoretical optimum' according to classical location theory. Chapter Eight analyses human and natural resources in relation to regional development and future prospects for industrial location. Some suggestions are offered, and policy issues are raised in the concluding remarks.