Professional Documents
Culture Documents
(2009)
Industries maximize profits by reducing costs. Therefore industries are located where the costs are
minimum. The factors influencing optimal localization of industries are:
i. Access to Market:
Areas/regions having high purchasing power provide large market therefore industries are located
in these regions.
b. Industries using perishable raw material are located closer to the source of the raw material. Such
as Agro-processing and dairy industries are located close to the sources of farm produce or milk
supply respectively.
iii. Access to Labour Supply: Some types of manufacturing require skilled labour therefore
industries are located near urban-educational centres where skilled labour is easily available.
iv. Access to Sources of Energy: Industries which use more power are located close to the source
of the energy supply such as the aluminium industry.
vi. Government Policy: Governments adopt ‘regional policies’ to promote ‘balanced’ economic
development and hence set up industries in particular areas.
vii. Access to Agglomeration Economies: Many industries benefit from nearness to a leader-
industry and other industries. These benefits are termed as agglomeration economies.
• Ques: “iron and steel industry is a basic industry in the development of any country.”
Explain.(2008)
1. All the other industries — heavy, medium and light, depend on it for their machinery.
2.. Steel is needed to manufacture a variety of engineering goods, construction material, defence,
medical, telephonic, scientific equipment and a variety of consumer goods.
3. Iron and Steel is often called the backbone of modern industry. Almost everything we use is
either made
of iron or steel or has been made with tools and machinery of these metals. Ships, trains, trucks,
and autos are made largely of steel. Even the safety pins and the needles you use are made from
steel. Oil wells are drilled with steel machinery. Steel pipelines transport oil. Minerals are mined
with steel equipment. Farm machines are mostly steel. Large buildings have steel framework.
4. The development of the iron and steel industry opened the doors to rapid industrial development
in world. Almost all sectors of the all industries depend heavily on the iron and steel industry for
their basic infrastructure.
i. Cost of obtaining raw materials at site: Manufacturing activity tends to locate at the most
appropriate place where all the raw materials of production are either available or can be arranged
at lower cost.
ii. Cost of production at site: These are influenced by availability of labour, capital, power, etc.
Thus industrial location is influenced by the costs of availability of these factors of production.
iii. Cost of distribution of production: The distance of industry from market influence the
transportation costs. Transportation costs influence the cost of distribution of production.
Capital That is the money that is invested to start the business. The amount of capital will
determine the size and location of the factory.
• What factors affect location of cement industry (2008).
electronic equipment are made in the West Midlands conurbation, which with the addition
of Coventry roughly corresponds to the former metropolitan county of West Midlands. The
industrial Black Country and the city of Birmingham are in the West Midlands. Greater
Manchester has cotton and synthetic textiles, coal, and chemical industries and is a
transportation and warehousing center.
2. Merseyside conurbation.:Liverpool, Britain's second port, along with Southport and Saint
Helens are part of the Merseyside conurbation. Leeds, Bradford, and the neighboring
metropolitan districts are Britain's main center of woolen, worsted, and other textile
production.
3. the Tyneside-Wearside region:, with Newcastle upon Tyne as its center and Sunderland as
a main city, has coal mines and steel, electrical engineering, chemical, and shipbuilding and
repair industries.
4. The South Wales conurbation, with the ports of Swansea, Cardiff, and Newport, was historically
a center of coal mining and steel manufacturing; coal mining has declined sharply, however, in
many parts of the region. Current important industries also include oil refining, metals production
(lead, zinc, nickel, aluminum), synthetic fibers, and electronics. In Scotland, the region around the
River Clyde, including Glasgow, is noted for shipbuilding, marine engineering, and printing as well
as textile, food, and chemicals production. The Belfast area in Northern Ireland is a shipbuilding,
textile, and food products center.
• Ques: examine the influence of labour for the localization of industry. (2009)
Adequate supply of cheap and skilled labour is necessary for and industry. The attraction of
an industry towards labour centres depends on the ratio of labour cost to the total cost of
production which Weber calls ‘Labour cost of Index’. The availability of skilled workers in
the interior parts of Bombay region was one of the factors responsible for the initial
concentration of cotton textile industry in the region.Industries which demand a lot of
workers tend to locate where there is a large supply of labour. They are called labour-
intensive industries.
The existence of differences in labour costs leads an industry to deviate from the optimal
point of transport orientation. Geographical distribution of the population would give rise to
differences in wages for labour. Naturally, the transport oriented location of an industry is
drawn out and attracted towards the cheaper labour centres. Such migration of an industry
from a point of minimum transport costs to a cheaper labour centre may be likely to occur
only where the savings in the cost of labour are larger than the additional costs of transport
which it ought to incur.
The role of Labour : Labour is needed to operate any industrial plant but the type and amount
vary from industry to industry. In some industries, labour input is a large cost item while other may
be of minor importance. Labour is relatively immobile factor, difficult to move to new areas or to
new jobs. Largely for this reason, labour-intensive industries may be attracted to areas that have a
surplus of labour
Labour costs are determined by 3 main consideration:
According to Weber, transport costs and labour costs are the two regional factors on which his pure theory is
based. Assuming that there are no other factors that influence the distribution of industry, except
transportation costs. Then it is clear that the location of industry will be pulled to those locations which have
the lowest transportation costs. The key factors that determine transportation costs are
Weber lists some more factors which influence the transportation costs such as – (a) the type of
transportation system and the extent of its use, (b) the nature of the region and kinds of roads, (c) the nature
of goods themselves, i.e., the qualities which, besides weight, determine the facility of transportation.
However, the location of the place of production must be determined in relation to the place of consumption
and to the most advantageously located material deposits. Thus, ‘locational figures’ are created. These
locational figures depends upon (a) the type of material deposits and (b) the nature of transformation into
products.
Weber classifies and calls those raw materials, which are available practically everywhere as ‘ubiquities’
(like brick-clay, water, etc) and ‘localised’ (like iron-ore, minerals, wood, etc) which are available only in
certain regions. It is clear that localized materials play a more important role on the industry than the
ubiquities. Further, regarding the nature of the transformation of materials into products, Weber categorized
the raw materials as ‘pure’ and ‘weight losing’. Pure materials impart their total weight to the products (eg.
cotton, wool, etc) and the materials are said to be ‘weight losing’ if only a part enters into the product (eg.
wood, coal, etc.). Hence, the location of industries using weight-losing materials is drawn towards their
deposits and that of industries using pure-materials towards the consumption centres.