Light industry is usually less capital intensive than heavy industry, and is more consumer-oriented than business-oriented (i.e., most light industry products are produced for end users rather than as intermediates for use by other industries). Light industry facilities typically have less environmental impact than those associated with heavy industry, and zoning laws are more likely to permit light industry near residential areas. It is the production of small consumer goods.
One economic definition states that light industry is a "manufacturing activity that uses moderate amounts of partially processed materials to produce items of relatively high value per unit weight".
Examples of light industries include the manufacture of clothes, shoes, furniture, consumer electronics and home appliances. Conversely, ship building would fall under heavy industry.
Read more about Light Industry: Characteristics
Famous quotes containing the words light and/or industry:
“Is light enough when this bewilderment crying against the dark shuts down the shades?
Dilute confusion. Find and explode our mist.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“I have never yet spoken from a public platform about women in industry that someone has not said, “But things are far better than they used to be.” I confess to impatience with persons who are satisfied with a dangerously slow tempo of progress for half of society in an age which requires a much faster tempo than in the days that “used to be.” Let us use what might be instead of what has been as our yardstick!”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)