Light industry

To the economic activity oriented to the production of goods through the mediation of human action and machinery is called industry.

The definition is almost entirely in opposition to the others economic activities in which there is no physical transformation of the asset that is the complete responsibility of the human being, but has more to do with taking advantage of opportunities offered by nature: agricultural, livestock and mining activities are the most common examples of these kinds of activities.

Anyway, it is common that products obtained from nature have to be transformed for consumption, so the industrial activity it is combined all the time with agrarian or mining, and to a lesser extent with livestock.

Products made within the framework of industrial activity do not always have the same destination: the most frequent division is that established between goods whose production is intended for individual consumption to satisfy a need, of those that are used with the in order to optimize some other economic activity, functioning as work tools.

That's the division between consumer goods and the capital goods, which in general is associated with the type of industry that handles the respective types of goods: the industry typically associated with consumer goods is light or light industry, while the one related to capital goods is the heavy industry.

The light industry has the particularity of using much smaller amounts of partially processed materials, produce smaller objects and therefore with a relatively high added value per unit weight. The energy demands of heavy industrial factories are much lower than those of heavy industry, as well as the size of the buildings in which they are produced. As the fundamental intention is to produce goods whose destination is the consumption of the public, in the light industry the functionality of the product is as important as its presentation, and its physical characteristics that make it tempting for the potential customer.

The light industry It involves economic phenomena with characteristics that are its own, very different from the cases of heavy industry. For example, regional economies, typical in some areas of developing countries more associated with agricultural economic activities, have a very small scope in which the development of industries of this type is only possible.

The light industry its alot more compatible with residential areas where people live, and it is frequent that the level of employment they generate is much higher per unit of product than those of the light industry: this is why usually the countries with the highest level of light industry are the same in which the average salary of the workers is very low.

The light industry promotion programs are typical in undeveloped countries, with an apparent advantage that comes from the foreign savings that comes from the possibility of substituting eventual imports: however, these programs frequently collide with limitations in the supply of foreign exchange to be able to sustain the importation of capital goods , necessary for these production processes.

See also: Examples of Heavy Industry

The following list includes a variety of products that are considered part of the light industry: