In his book The 10 rules of successful nations (itself abridged from his larger book The Rise and Fall of Nations), Ruchir Sharma lists investment and manufacturing to be extremely important. In fact, he argues that the ideal level of investment for a growing country should be about 25 to 35 percent of GDP.
Sharma has a database of 56 post-WWII economies whose performance he has tracked across various indicators. He finds that when countries were investing within the range specified, growth, on average exceeded 6 percent or more for a decade or more.
That would mean that over a period of ten years, a countries GDP would increase almost 1.8 times if it grew at that rate. There are of course, many other variables that could affect a country's rate of growth, but most other factors are not necessarily linked to what policies a government could take to quickly reach a growth target. One other thing that a country can do is to devalue its currency and appear "cheap" but that option only really makes sense if it does export goods and services at scale, as Sharma also points out.
Manufacturing can help a country to get a leg up. Most countries that have developed since WWII have used manufacturing to lift themselves up. This includes Japan, South Korea, China and other Asian 'tigers'. Today, Bangladesh has significantly improved the standard of living of the majority of its people by being a manufacturing hub for apparel and shoes.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that countries can go 'up' the manufacturing value chain. Start with basic, low-tech outputs like shoes and clothes, invest the proceeds obtained from their sale in R&D or workplace training and keep moving up.
