WASHINGTON, Oct 30 Reuters African countries are less likely to follow East Asia39;s development model of expanding manufacturing to pull people out of poverty, according to a study that shows a declining share of factory jobs for most countries by midcentury.

The new paper released on Monday by the Center for Global Development shows there will be fewer factory workers in 2050 globally than there are now, and that even in poor countries with abundant cheap labor, manufacturing job growth will stagnate.

China may be an exception, further expanding its share of manufacturing output among 59 countries modeled in the study to 43.8 in 2050 from 30 in 2018 and 10.5 in 1975.

The study39;s authors say that China will continue to dominate global manufacturing, moving into highervalue segments.

While this may create some space for other developing countries in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America to move into lowerend manufacturing in lowend sectors abandoned by China, it won39;t be enough to replicate the transformative East Asian development model of moving from Agriculture to manufacturing.

Instead, CGD senior fellows Charles Kenny and Ranil Dissanayake say that many countries will move straight from agriculture to services, where jobs will expand rapidly, especially because of new technologies even in countries such as Bangladesh and Ethiopia.

Theres still a popular idea that lowincome countries will progress naturally from being dominated by agriculture to…