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The aim of this paper is to study the impacts of the local industrial structure (including specialization, diversity, competitiveness, and firm size) of wages and foreign direct investment on the productive performance of manufacturing plants in terms of added value using a panel data model. For five industrial sectors in138 coastal areas of Tunisia over the period 1998–2004, our results show that specialization, diversification, and competition are beneficial for industrial development. Our study also shows that large plants are more productive and that foreign direct investments have negative impacts on the added value.