African Entrepreneurship Record

The financial difficulties in East Africa are essentially due to the fact that there were too many projects and projects in East Africa throughout the 1990s, and money had to be invested in all aspects. In this case, the East African government must optimize financial investment and achieve comprehensive development in all fields.

Although military expenditures have been compressed, this is relative to other fields. According to the development process of the East African economy, military expenditures are actually still in a state of growth, but the speed has slowed down. However, compared with other countries, East African military construction has actually made great progress.

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Maputo City.

After the administrative division adjustment, Maputo City was incorporated into Hansa Province, but the capital of Hansa Province was still chosen as the Port of New Hamburg.

However, as one of the excellent seaports in East Africa, Hansa Province has high hopes for Maputo. In October 1897, the Hansa Provincial Government decided to build Maputo into one of the province's foreign economic windows.

Although the conditions of New Hamburg Port City are not bad and the resources are excellent, New Hamburg Port City is not completely without shortcomings. As one of the naval bases, New Hamburg Port City has higher confidentiality than ordinary coastal cities. In addition, the port area is small, so the land resources are quite tight when the military and civilians share it.

Maputo City does not have such concerns. Maputo also occupies the condition of an excellent port. Its northern part is the Plain Province. As a new province, the economic conditions of the Plain Province are not as good as those of the Hansa Province. After all, the Hansa Province has New Hamburg Port City, a large city with the highest economic level in East Africa.

During the Portuguese colonial period, Maputo was also the economic and political center of the entire Mozambique. Xinxiang City, the capital of the Plain Province, was originally just the Chokwe Town under Maputo City during the Portuguese period. There was a significant gap between the two. Even if Xinxiang City has now become the provincial capital, as an inland area, the transportation infrastructure has not yet taken shape, so it is difficult to compete with Maputo.

"According to the superior documents, although our Maputo City is not the provincial capital, it has a favorable geographical location and a very good economic foundation in Mozambique, so Maputo has been assigned a university, namely Maputo Agricultural College. According to the instructions of the document, Maputo City's agricultural basic conditions are comprehensively utilized to create a regional agricultural powerhouse."

Maputo is also part of the southern plains of Mozambique. At the same time, because it is backed by the Drakensberg Mountains, it has abundant rainfall and many rivers flowing through the area, and the agricultural basic conditions are very good.

Although other areas of Hansa Province also have plains, the area is not as large as that around Maputo City. In line with the development trend of agricultural mechanization, Maputo's advantages are more obvious.

"Our city has a large area of ​​plains, many rivers and lakes, vast waters, mountains and terraces in the west, and the sea in the east, so the comprehensive conditions of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery are obviously advantageous, which is one of the important reasons why the Hansa Province Agricultural College is located in Maputo."

"At the same time, according to the instructions of the provincial government, in addition to establishing a provincial key university, 18 industrial projects will be invested in our city in 1898, covering the two major fields of agriculture and industry, including Maputo woolen mills, wood processing plants, real estate..."

Real estate appeared rather abruptly in the list of projects, but Mayor Hans Layton soon explained.

"According to the opinions of the provincial government, our city, as an important commercial and trade port in the southern hemisphere, vigorously develops the service industry, relieves the reception pressure of the provincial capital New Hamburg Port City, and builds a number of service-oriented real estate such as catering, hotels, pubs, ship repair shops, etc. around the service industry, mainly to provide services for ships and passengers docked in Hansa Province."

In fact, this is the path of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, but compared with the two cities, Maputo is too remote.

Before the opening of the Suez Canal, Maputo may have been a must-go place for many ships, but after the opening of the Suez Canal, the closer the East African cities are to the north, the easier it is to succeed in commercial trade. This is also the main reason why Mombasa can compete with Dar es Salaam despite its weak overall conditions.

Of course, Maputo's approach is not wrong. After all, the coastal trade in East Africa is a big cake that cannot be monopolized by these two cities. This is the case with the development of the Port of New Hamburg.

Of course, the early development of the Port of New Hamburg actually focused more on industry rather than commercial trade. Its commercial trade activities were mainly carried out with the Portuguese and British colonies, but now the two Portuguese colonies have been incorporated into East Africa, which has broken one leg of the foreign trade of the Port of New Hamburg.

However, with the most developed industry in southern Africa, the Port of New Hamburg can still stand out from the crowd, and domestic trade accounts for a large part of the trade of the Port of New Hamburg.

For example, most of the mineral resources in the southern region are exported from the Port of New Hamburg to resource-scarce areas such as Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, especially coal and iron ore, which account for the majority.

At the same time, the industrial products of the Port of New Hamburg are also exported to the inland, including Hechingen Province, Orange Province and Baden Province. At the same time, relying on its seaport conditions, it can also export certain necessities of life to Southwest Africa.

As the southernmost seaport city in East Africa, the Port of New Hamburg actually has a dislocated development with Mombasa and Dar es Salaam in the north, and the ones that can threaten the status of the Port of New Hamburg are actually the former coastal cities of Mozambique, including the extremely rapidly developing Beira City.

Take the two advantageous resources of iron ore and coal exported by the Port of New Hamburg as an example. After the opening of the Beira Railway, the Central Province of Bohemia (formerly Matabele Province) can also transit through Beira to realize the transportation of coal and iron ore from the province to coastal cities.

In this case, Hansa Province urgently needs new cities to ensure its economic position in southern East Africa, so building a twin city pattern of Maputo and New Hamburg Port has become an important goal of Hansa Province.

There is a railway connection between New Hamburg Port City and Maputo, and communication is convenient, so the linkage development can further consolidate the economic position of Hansa Province.

Of course, the goal of Hansa Province is actually to prevent being surpassed by the Zambezi River Province with Beira as the provincial capital. As for the plain province between the two, it has been positioned as an agricultural province, and its development is restricted, and it is difficult to achieve anything in a short period of time.

Of course, it is still quite difficult for Hansa Province to compete with Beira City. Behind Beira City is the largest heavy industrial base in East Africa. Although Matabele Province has been split and Bulawayo City has been incorporated into Lorraine Province, the cities in Bohemia Province, led by Harare City, are far superior to New Hamburg Port City in comprehensive economic strength.

Hans Layton said: "Although Maputo left a certain industrial and agricultural foundation during the Portuguese colonial period, it is far behind the cities in East Africa. Therefore, if our city wants to become an important city in southern East Africa, we must reintegrate the resources in the city, and at the same time give play to the influence left by the original Portuguese, transform and upgrade the port area resources, and provide more convenient and high-quality services for domestic and foreign ships."

During the Portuguese rule, Maputo had basically no industry, with only a few small factories, including tobacco and wood processing, and the biggest assets left by the Portuguese were actually a bunch of handicraft workshops. These workshops were mainly to meet the needs of Maputo at that time. They were self-sufficient, but unable to expand. In addition, after Maputo fell into the hands of East Africa, a large number of local people returned to Portugal, and the originally prosperous handicraft industry also shrank.

These are all what Hans Layton wants to reuse. At present, Maputo City can only obtain a few policy resources. After all, so many cities in East Africa are competing, and there are too many monks and too little porridge. Even if the resources can be obtained, they are limited.

So according to Hans Layton's idea, the original handicraft industry in Maputo should be reintegrated. Although it is not as efficient as large-scale factories, it is enough to support the early development of Maputo. Moreover, many handicraft industries are temporarily unable to realize industrialized production, so Hans Layton believes that there is a lot of room for operation.