Industrial Development and Sectoral Classification: Challenges and Construction

Posted on Oct 23, 2025 in Geography

The Secondary Sector and Industry Classification

The Secondary Sector, primarily focused on industry, is the engine that gives rise to capitalism. In the capitalist system, industrial development can be distinguished into three major stages:

  • The First Industrial Revolution: This transformation resulted in the mechanization of the system, consisting of the use of machinery and an energy model based on coal and the steam engine.
  • The Second Industrial Revolution: Machinery deepened and expanded, introducing oil production and electrical technology.
  • The Third Industrial Revolution (Current Revolution): Characterized by the introduction of microelectronics, computing, telecommunications, and biogenetics.

UNIDO Classification of Manufactured Branches

The organization of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) established a classification of manufactured branches:

  1. Basic Industries: Includes capital goods industries (equipment, e.g., shipbuilding), industries of consumer durables (e.g., cars), and consumption goods industries (e.g., textiles).
  2. Heavy or Light Manufacturing Industry: Classification based on the relationship between the cost of materials and the value of production. Example: Heavy industry (steel); Light industry (electronics).
  3. Mature and Leading Industries: Refers to the appropriateness of the technology used in a branch or factory. Current leading industries include microelectronics, new materials, and bio-genetics.
  4. Industries of Strong, Average, or Weak Demand: Industrial goods are differentiated according to their rate of growth.
    • Strong Demand Branches: Electrical machinery and electronics, precision instruments, and the chemical industry.
    • Average Demand Branches: Rubber or plastic, transport equipment, food industry, beverages and tobacco, and the paper industry.
    • Weak Demand Branches: Steel, metal products, wood, cork, and textiles.
  5. Small, Medium, and Large Industry: Classification based on the function of plants, number of employees, and turnover or sales volume.

Challenges and the Construction Subsector

Current Problems of the Industrial Sector

The industrial sector is subject to a number of highly relevant processes:

  • Technological Progress: This involves obtaining technical innovation, manifested in new production processes. Technological change allows the same volume of products to be obtained with lower resource consumption. The industrial sector is particularly subject to innovation processes.
  • Organizational Systems of Industrial Enterprises: A new organizational model, the Toyota Production System, emerged in opposition to systems such as Taylorism and Fordism. The latter two based their production schemes on the serious division of labor and production/assembly lines, which reduces task time.
  • Globalization of Competition: This sets a hostile environment for industrial companies.
  • Relocation of Productive Activities: This consists of spatially separating the sequence of production/processing from use/consumption.

The Construction Subsector

Within the construction subsector, there are two primary dimensions: the functional and the productive structure.

Functional Dimension of Construction

This dimension includes:

  • Building Construction: Includes the building of houses, commercial buildings, offices, sporting facilities, and infrastructure improvements.
  • Public Works: Includes networks and pipelines (initial or final stages).

One of the most important features of the construction sector is its high linkage capacity (or multiplier effect) on other sectors, as these sectors provide building materials or act as supporting industries for construction.

Productive Structure of Construction

The productive structure consists of:

  • Industrial Material: The cement industry is stressed, as it is the main element used in construction. The construction of any building or facility involves the use of broad sub-products such as steel and other metal industries, industrial ceramics, the wood industry, the glass industry, and chemical products.
  • Project Designs: Such as engineering and architecture for building.
  • Planning: Setting the territory for the urban environment.