industry

The location of an industry is crucial to its profitability. Proximity to the industry's raw materials - and to the market where the product will be sold - will reduce transportation costs. The local labour force needs to be of the right size and have the requisite level of skills to suit the industry. The availability of the right size and type of land will be a major factor, as will a suitable transport system.

The extraction and conversion of raw materials, the manufacture of goods, and the provision of services. Industry can be either low technology, unspecialized, and labour-intensive, as in countries with a large unskilled labour force, or highly automated, mechanized, and specialized, using advanced technology, as in the industrialized countries. Major recent trends in industrial activity have been the growth of electronic, robotic, and microelectronic technologies, the expansion of the offshore oil industry, and the prominence of Japan and other Pacific-region countries in manufacturing and distributing electronics, computers, and motor vehicles.