The sheer remoteness and poor road and railway connectivity to large urban centres typical of many monotow'ns is a powerful obstacle to economic diversification, especially toward manufacturing activities. Indeed, since transport costs for raw' materials tend to be lower than those for manufactured goods, high transport costs tend to reinforce the specialisation in raw' commodities and constitute yet another barrier that producers of higher-value manufactures must overcome in order to compete (OECD, 2015c). In 10 monotowns, real wage growth has been negative (Figure 1.28).