I am inclined to think that the Scramble for Africa is too late for the CSA to get African colonies - if they wanted colonies, they'd have to claim them earlier I think.
It's possible that hard times for the cotton industry might drive such a colonial push in a way that made it palatable to liberal sensibilities in Europe. Basically Liberia-style "resettlement" colonies to get rid of excess slaves.
It does assume that there'd be an excess though... It may be that slaves would simply be used for other crops or for work outside agriculture.
As far as industry goes, it's worth remembering that during the civil war the CSA was maybe the 4th biggest steel producer in the world. They were weak compared to the Union, but the Northeast of the US was one of the must industrial regions of the world at this point. So the CSA might compare rather favourably to European states if it somehow won its independence.
Of course, the CSA could also lose its relatively good position through political dysfunction, like making the state into a slave of the planter class or by having a civil war among each-other...
The CS Congress actually adopted the tariff schedule of the US with few revisions IOTL. The Southerners' resistance to tariffs is greatly overstated. But even if they were resistant to tariffs, we understand today that protective tariffs don't work. They reward inefficient producers and discourage investment and innovation. Even when done to protect infant industries, protectionism is a dubious course of action. If industries must be protected--which is always questionable--it's a lot better to give the producers a subsidy than to tax imports. And the CSA was subsidy happy.
By modern economic understanding, the free-trading CSA should be better positioned to industrialize than a protectionist CS.
When we don't acknowledge the pitfalls of protectionism, we are in essence accepting a 19th century understanding of trade policy at face value. It was wrong then and its wrong now.
So far as I know, not a single industrial state did so without protectionism. Though sometimes the protectionist measures weren't tariffs - the patent system is a protectionist measure, for example.
Do you know any exceptions?
fasquardon