High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Manufacturing in Ethiopia was, before 1957, dominated by cottage and handicraft industries which met most of the population's needs for manufactured goods such as clothes, ceramics, machine tools, and leather goods. Various factors - including the lack of basic infrastructure, the dearth of private and public investment, and the lack of any consistent public policy aimed at promoting industrial development - contributed to the insignificance of manufacturing. In 1957, Ethiopia initiated a series of five-year development plans. Throughout much of the 1960s and early 1970s, manufacturing activity increased as the government's five-year plans diversified the economy by encouraging agro-industrial activity and by substituting domestically produced goods for imported items. Thus, according to the World Bank, manufacturing production increased at an annual rate of 6.1 percent between 1965 and 1973. During the same period, agriculture grew at an annual 2.1 percent rate, and services grew at an annual 6.7 percent rate.