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Fitting tech can boost textile and food processing sectors - experts
2008-05-12 09:15:25
By Beatrice Philemon
A team of experts suggest taking on appropriate technology for food processing and textile industries will ensure their sustained growth, despite risks posed by globalisation.
Team is composed of Micheline Goedhuys, Norbert Janz and Pierre Mohnen from the United Nations University- Maastricht Economic and Social Research and Training Centre on Innovation and Technology in Netherlands.
They argue in their analytical report that the strategy would also increase managerial and technological capabilities, productivity and profitability and create leeway for firms to adjust to changing market conditions.
It is only high tech, they say, which can ensure reduction of costs, improvement of output quality and development of new products and markets, from the perspective of the firm these activities are innovative since they incorporate a strong component of technological learning and may result in products and production processes that are new to the firm.
Moreover, investment in and mastery of new machinery and equipment remains most important way for technological learning in developing countries geared to the improvement of production processes.
They also noted that purchasing licenses of production and distribution rights is a way to get access to new technologies incorporating Research and Development (R&D) from developed countries.
``Using new technologies requires skills and improving human capital by formal education and continuous (R&D) activities, thus in turn increasing firm’s absorptive capacity, thereby facilitating technology adoption and mastery``, they said.
Also it offers possibilities to generate improvements and follow-up innovations.
During their analysis by using firm level data from five countries –Brazil, Ecuador, South Africa, Tanzania and Bangladesh, they examined knowledge-based determinants of productivity of firms active in food processing, textiles, and garments and leather products.
In food processing, firm productivity is most strongly affected by quality of management and foreign ownership linkages and in textiles, firms raise productivity levels by importing new machinery and through research and development.
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