This paper examines structural change in global trade and its impact in the development of manufacturing shares across countries over time. It focuses on the dynamics of variety creation and destruction in exports and links the observed outcomes to the development of manufacturing shares across countries. The results show that while there is an inverse-U-shaped relationship with income per capita levels across countries of manufacturing shares, a specialisation in product lines with a high likelihood of displacing other exports and a high propensity to induce a clustering in the uptake of exports in related product lines is positively associated with manufacturing shares. Controlling for income levels more complex export portfolios are weakly associated with smaller manufacturing shares. These effects are mitigated when these parameters combine at the extreme ends of their values range.