Top Asian industrial producers like China, South Korea and Thailand consistently rack up over 30 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) from the value added by their manufacturing industries. The contribution of manufacturing to the Lebanese economy in each of the past 10 years has, by the World Bank’s estimations, notoriously been below 10 percent of GDP. Nothing new there for 2014. But it would be a fallacy to think that Lebanon lacks industry or potential for industrial growth. And, as Executive’s coverage of the manufacturing industry shows, it would be an even graver blunder to think that industry doesn’t matter for Lebanon. Would you have guessed that South Korea’s per capita GDP represented less than 50 percent of Ghana’s, just 50 years ago? When internationally renowned development economist, Korean born Ha-Joon Chang of Cambridge University, recounted the journey of his home country from backwardness to OECD stalwart in
