African Entrepreneurship Record

City of Beira.

In the national positioning of East Africa, the city of Beira is quite special. It is one of the central cities in the southeastern coastal region, connecting two important ports of Dar es Salaam in the north and Maputo in the south.

In the past ten years, Beira has been the fastest-growing city in East Africa. Today, the total population of Beira has exceeded 300,000. As a region such as Bohemian Industrial Products and the Lorraine Industrial Zone (Zimbabwe and the eastern region of Botswana), Beira is the fastest-growing city in the world. Channel, Beira is almost responsible for most of the goods trade in the central industry.

The new mayor of Beira, Kelta, said: "At present, the city's economic level is constantly rising, and it has become the country's first export port for important materials such as sugar, tobacco, copper mines, and machinery in the central region. Among cities, it is second only to Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and New Hamburg Port City. During the First Five-Year Plan period, our city's industry and economy will surely surpass New Hamburg Port City and become the third city in eastern East Africa. "

Relying on the Central Industrial Zone, Beira City is likely to become or surpass a large city like Mombasa or Dar es Salaam in the future, because the industrial level of the Central Industrial Zone currently ranks first in East Africa.

Neither Dar es Salaam nor Maputo in the south can form effective competitiveness against the Port of Beira. Even because of the rise of the Port of Beira, some cities in the southern regions of Zambia and Congo have been Goods are more willing to be exported from the Port of Beira, so the rise of the city of Beira is indeed the greatest threat to the city of Dar es Salaam.

In the past life, there were a large number of countries in East Africa. Due to various reasons, these countries could not agree on transportation construction. They generally built transportation networks with their own capitals as the core. This also made African countries very weak in transportation cooperation and vulnerable to factors such as politics and war. Impact.

The establishment of East Africa has undoubtedly eliminated this sense of regional division, which is also an important factor in Bella's rapid rise.

Kerta said: “Thanks to the rapid development of the Port of Beira in the 1990s, Beira is now one of the important industrial cities in the country, which is beneficial for our city to compete with other cities in the First Five-Year Plan. "

"Before 1903, our goal was to at least surpass the New Hamburg Port City and solidify its status as the third city on the eastern coast. On this basis, our city's population would exceed at least 400,000 and the industrial scale would increase by at least 15%."

"With the help of the general background of the first five-year plan, we will implement the further development of our city's petroleum and chemical industries and become a supply center for inland petroleum and chemical raw materials."

With the rise of the petroleum and chemical industries in East Africa, most coastal cities in East Africa have gained new opportunities for development. The industrial areas in central East Africa do not produce oil, so oil can only rely on imports or northern East Africa.

Beira is the port for importing oil in the central industrial zone. Oil resources from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Romania and Russia will first arrive at the Port of Beira and then be transported inland by rail.

Therefore, relying on this advantage, during the First Five-Year Plan period, the East African central government is preparing to deploy a larger-scale petroleum industry in Beira Port, mainly in refining and storage and transportation. The production includes fuel, lubricating oil, petroleum wax, and petroleum asphalt. , petroleum products such as petroleum coke, and also provide corresponding production raw materials for the petrochemical industry.

The implementation of the petroleum industry in Beira City is inseparable from the Central Industrial Zone. Without the huge energy demand of the Central Industrial Zone, there would be no need to go to great lengths to deploy related industries in Beira.

This is easy to understand. Without industry, the demand for energy will naturally be very small. In the previous life, the Far East Empire went from an oil exporting country to the largest oil importing country due to industrial development.

Today, in the energy field, coal's dominance is still stable, but East Africa has begun large-scale development of energy such as oil and natural gas, and has surpassed the United States in this field, ranking first in the world.

Against this background, important coastal cities such as Beira are more or less vigorously exploring the potential of the oil industry and injecting new blood into the East African industry.

Of course, the three major oil producing areas in the world are the United States, Europe and East Africa. East Africa has reached the third position in the world in terms of production, but it still imports a large amount of oil from abroad. This shows that the East African government attaches great importance to the oil industry. degree.

Kelta: "The oil industry is expected to become an important industry in the 20th century like the electric power industry. At present, the electric power industry has exerted great power in various countries around the world, driving the development of a large number of related industries and becoming one of the important symbols of industrial development in various countries."

"With the development of the internal combustion engine and the chemical industry, the prospects of the petroleum industry have become very clear. Petroleum has become the second largest energy source in East Africa after coal. Therefore, the development of the petroleum industry is the focus of East Africa in the future. Our city We must also seize the opportunity to become an important center for petroleum refining and by-product processing in the country.”

Compared with East Africa, the current demand for oil in other countries in the world is not large, so the fact that oil has become the second largest energy source in East Africa does not hold true in other countries, and may not even be as large as the use of natural gas, because natural gas is large The history of large-scale application is earlier than that of oil, because a lot of natural gas comes from by-products of coal mining, so with the development of the early coal industry, the natural gas industry was also formed relatively early.

During the first industrial revolution in Britain, the natural gas industry was formed and became the main energy source for the European lighting industry.

Kelta: “In addition, during the First Five-Year Plan period, in addition to building a petroleum refinery with the latest technology, our city also needs to innovate the city’s steel industry, carry out equipment innovation for the Beira City Steel Plant, and build a new Beira Steel Plant. The city's coal washing plant, the second pharmaceutical factory of Beira City, the fifth power plant and other enterprises will also connect with the aluminum industry in Hindai Town and develop aluminum product processing, etc. "

In the 1990s, Beira's pharmaceutical industry was relatively developed through cooperation with German chemical and pharmaceutical companies. Therefore, on this basis, East Africa focused on strengthening the local pharmaceutical industry, but it was mainly export-oriented. .

From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, many chemical and pharmaceutical companies were inseparable, and the strongest country in this field was Germany.

Of course, pharmaceutical companies in this era are relatively chaotic. Many drugs have not been effectively inspected and supervised, especially psychotropic drugs. There is a high probability that they are illegal ingredients in previous lives. Just like people do not fully understand the dangers of radioactive substances, most of them in this era People’s understanding of these substances is also incomplete.

What really made Europe, and even the whole world, realize its harm was the final result of the massive use of the military during the two world wars.

Therefore, although the East African government strongly supports the pharmaceutical companies in Beira, they are quite cautious in using them in the domestic medical system. However, this does not prevent the pharmaceutical industry from making huge profits. East African countries use them cautiously or simply ban them, but they have no regard for exports. Psychological burden, and because it is as addictive as tobacco, many drug exports basically have no sales problems.

In addition to manufacturing, the aluminum product processing industry is also a key industry in Beira City during the First Five-Year Plan period. East Africa has deployed the electrolytic aluminum industry in Hindai Town at the mouth of the Zambezi River, and the construction of the fifth power plant in Beira City is an important reason , is to provide power support for Hindai Town, and the two cities will cooperate in development. If Tete City, which is the leading city, is added, it will be cooperation among the three places.

Hindai Town has a short history of development in this province, and the electrolytic aluminum industry has a huge demand for electricity, so the electricity gap is huge. In this case, it is very important to "borrow" electricity from the nearby cities of Beira and Tete. Tete City Coal It is rich in resources, so the cost of power generation is low. As an important port city, Beira City facilitates the import of coal from India and southern East Africa. It also has a large population and a strong industrial base, so the power generation is relatively rich, so the two places can provide Hindai Town with Provide part of the power gap.