Comoros Industry and Infrastructure
Nzwani factory that distils oil from lemongrass
Courtesy Brian Kensley
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 mariage), 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.
Perhaps the primary outcome of South African
penetration of
the Comoran economy during the Abdallah regime was the
development of tourism. Although South African investors
built or
renovated several hotels during the 1980s (with assistance
from
the South African and Comoran governments), only one
resort, the
182-room Galawa Beach on Njazidja, was operating by late
1992.
About 100 other hotel rooms were available on the islands.
Political instability, a declining South African interest
in the
islands as the apartheid regime was disassembled and other
tropical tourism venues became more welcoming, and the
need to
import most construction materials and consumable supplies
inhibited the growth of tourism, despite the islands'
physical
beauty. Nonetheless, in large part thanks to Galawa Beach,
which
had been closed during 1990, tourism increased from 7,627
visitors in 1990 to 16,942 in 1991. Most of these tourists
were
Europeans, primarily French
(see Historical Setting
, this
ch.).
Data as of August 1994
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