The 2011 Import and Export Market for Hand-Made Lace in Africa

On the demand side, exporters and strategic planners approaching the market in Africa face a number of questions. Which countries are supplying hand-made lace to Africa? What is the dollar value of these imports? How much do the imports of hand-made lace vary from one country to another in Africa? Do exporters serving the market in Africa have similar market shares across the importing countries? On the supply side, Africa also sells to the international market of hand-made lace. Which countries in Africa supply the most exports of hand-made lace? Which countries are buying their exports? What is the value of these exports and which countries are the largest buyers?

This report was created for strategic planners, international marketing executives and import/export managers who are concerned with the market for hand-made lace in Africa. With the globalization of this market, managers can no longer be contented with a local view. Nor can managers be contented with out-of-date statistics that appear several years after the fact. I have developed a methodology, based on macroeconomic and trade models, to estimate the market for hand-made lace for those countries serving Africa via exports or supplying from Africa via imports. We do so for the current year based on a variety of key historical indicators and econometric models.

In what follows, Chapter 2 begins by summarizing where Africa fits into the world market for imported and exported hand-made lace. The total level of imports and exports on a worldwide basis, and those for Africa in particular, is based on a model which aggregates across over 150 key country markets and projects these to the current year. From there, each country represents a percent of the world market. This market is served from a number of competitive countries of origin. Based on both demand- and supply-side dynamics, market shares by country of origin are then calculated across each country market