In order to better understand the shock of the 1980s, we must first measure the height of the fall. Between 1960 and 1980, Côte d'Ivoire had succeeded in a challenge that few African countries could claim. Sustained economic growth of 7% on average per year, driven in part by an industrial sector whose own growth rate reached 9%. GDP per capita had jumped from $551 to $1,068 between 1960 and 1979, and the country had acquired a diversified industrial structure (agro-food, textiles, chemicals, wood) which constituted the backbone of the national economy. This model nevertheless rested on fragile foundations. The economy remained deeply extroverted and dependent on exports of agricultural raw materials, mainly cocoa and coffee, with no real large-scale local processing. The successive five-year plans (1971-1975, then 1976-1980) had certainly oriented industry towards export activities and the State had injected more than 685 billion CFA francs between 1976 and 1980 in industrial development expenditure, but the network of local SMEs remained insufficient to ensure competitive and sustainable industrialization.

The shock of 1980: a model put to the test

The turning point of 1980 was brutal. The deterioration of the terms of trade on the world commodity markets, combined with the oil shock of 1979 which considerably increased businesses' costs, plunged the economy into a severe recession. Ivorian industry, which had benefited from favorable external conditions, frequently finds itself exposed to its own structural vulnerability. Namely a dependence on imported raw materials, high production costs and a narrow domestic consumer market. The excessive debt of the State, which had financed on credit the major agro-industrial and infrastructure projects of the previous decade (sugar complexes, paper industries, energy program), became a financial burden. The debt reaches 3,500 billion CFA francs, lastingly jeopardizing public investment capacity in the industrial sector. The great drought of 1983 worsened the situation by disrupting the supply of electrical energy and agricultural raw materials to factories.

Restructuring in full force: the plans of 1981-1985 and 1985-1993

Faced with the scale of the crisis, the Ivorian state is not remaining inactive. He initiated an industrial restructuring policy in two phases, first covering the period 1981-1985, then 1985-1993. The 1981-1985 five-year plan, implemented during a period of proven recession, sets three priority objectives: seeking maximum growth in industrial added value, improving the competitiveness of national industry, and accelerating the ivorization of capital and jobs. Particular emphasis is placed on the agri-food industries, considered the most accessible lever in a country where agriculture remains the economic base. The results remain below expectations. In response, from 1984 onwards, the State adopted a new investment code which updated and improved that of 1959. This text opened for the first time to industrial SMEs access to tax advantages previously reserved for large approved companies, and encouraged industrial establishment in the interior regions of the country by establishing value added aid which varied according to three geographical zones. Between 1984 and 1995, this code will allow the granting of 293 approvals to companies (compared to 221 under the old regime) favoring the creation of 148 new industrial companies and the restructuring of 113 units in difficulty.

The years 1985-1990: pressure from the IMF and its consequences social

The second half of the decade was marked by the entry on the scene of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Under pressure from structural adjustment programs, the Ivorian government is forced to adopt a series of particularly unpopular measures. The blocking and reduction of salaries, massive layoffs in the public sector, the surge in prices of basic foodstuffs (50% increase), galloping inflation reaching 15%, the increase in VAT by 43% and as well as the elimination of numerous social subsidies. These measures weigh heavily on domestic demand for manufactured products, further stifling an already weakened industrial fabric. On a social level, the divide is deep. GDP per capita, which was $1,215 in 1980, began a free fall to reach $816 in 1993. Unemployment is increasing, particularly among young people, and household purchasing power is eroding considerably. It is in this context of growing social tensions that an organized political protest is born, carried by autonomous unions which are gradually replacing the unified unionism of the General Union of Workers of Côte d'Ivoire (UGTCI). The period 1985-1990 thus marks the beginning of a profound questioning of the political and economic model of the PDCI-RDA.

The industrial sector in figures: a decade of decline

On the structural level, the decade 1980-1990 illustrates the chronic inability of Ivorian industry to exceed the threshold of 20% of GDP, including 16% for the modern industrial sector. The strategy of industrialization by state enterprises, favored since the 1970s, contributes to reducing industrial competitiveness instead of strengthening it. Public companies, poorly managed and suffering from failing governance highlighted by several audits of the time, accumulated deficits and embezzlement of funds. Ivory Coast, which at the turn of 1980 was the leading African investor in proportion to GDP in the production sector, is seeing this position rapidly erode. One of the most glaring weaknesses remains the insufficiency of the network of local SMEs, incapable of constituting a counterweight to the domination of foreign capital and of creating a real competitive process of endogenous industrialization. Export sectors (textiles, wood, agro-food) are suffering losses in competitiveness in the face of international competition, in a context of the CFA franc maintained at a fixed parity with the French franc, which penalizes industrial exports.

Towards privatization: the beginnings of a new paradigm

At the beginning of the 1990s, the state's response to the failure of state industrialization took the form of a privatization policy, developed under the impetus of the Bretton Woods institutions. Law No. 90-1610 of December 28, 1990 governs this new system, which consists of gradually transferring state-owned industrial companies through the sale of assets. This policy marks a major ideological break. The State, which had been the central actor in industrialization since independence, is gradually withdrawing from company capital in favor of the private sector. This transition, although imposed by circumstances, carries with it the seeds of a future recovery. The resumption of growth, which took place from 1994 onwards thanks to the devaluation of the CFA franc, will retrospectively confirm that structural adjustment, as painful as it may be on a social level, was a necessary step to consolidate the foundations of a viable industrial economy.

In short, the decade 1980-1990 is not simply an unfortunate parenthesis in Ivorian industrial history, it reveals a development model whose structural contradictions were inscribed from the beginning. Built on economic extroversion, dependence on foreign capital, the weakness of the fabric of local SMEs and the primacy of agricultural rent over industrial transformation, Ivorian industry bore within itself the seeds of its fragility long before the global crisis of the 1980s precipitated its collapse. However, this decade will at least have had the merit of asking, painfully but usefully, the fundamental questions that today's Ivory Coast still continues to seek to resolve: how to industrialize sustainably, from its own human and natural resources?