African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 886 Relocation of backward industries

 The economic colonization of the Abyssinian Empire was an important step in establishing an East African economic circle, because it is currently the only country with a good and independent economy around East Africa.

Like other countries and regions, except for Cape Town in the United Kingdom and the Red Sea Colony in Italy, none has a population of more than one million.

Cape Town has an early history of development. It has experienced hundreds of years of development from the Netherlands to the United Kingdom. After the end of the South African War, a large number of Boers returned to the Cape Town colony, further increasing the population of Cape Town.

The initial emergence of the Red Sea colonies was the result of population spillover from the Apennine Peninsula. After Germany, Italy has become the mainstream group of European immigrants. Mozambique and Angola in East Africa have absorbed many Italian immigrants in the past few years.

This allowed the Italian immigrant group in East Africa to quickly catch up with the Slavic immigrant group. However, the Slavic immigrant group in East Africa mainly came from various regions in the southern part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and had been deeply affected by Germanization to a certain extent. However, the number of Slavic immigrants from Tsarist Russia was not That’s too much.

The situation of the surrounding countries in East Africa, that is, except for the Abyssinian Empire, all others are colonies. This is the proper situation on the African continent. Non-indigenous independent countries like East Africa are the real wonders. .

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 The first town.

“Since 1873, a large amount of production equipment has been imported from Germany and other places, thus realizing the leapfrog development of our country’s industry. However, nearly two decades have passed and many equipment have lagged behind the times. East Africa’s overall industrial technology and equipment also need Innovation, especially in non-emerging industries.”

East Africa has always wanted to upgrade its industrial system, because most of the equipment imported to East Africa was in the 1970s, but the actual age of some equipment may be earlier.

“Of course, old equipment does not need to be eliminated immediately, but will be transferred to the west and north, thereby achieving further healthy development of my country’s overall industrial strength.”

Ernst continued: "At present, old industrial equipment is mainly concentrated in the central and eastern inland areas, so this technological equipment innovation should start from the inland areas first, and at the same time, it should mainly adopt East African independent new technologies and new equipment. ”

Therefore, coastal cities such as Dar es Salaam and Mombasa can stand out among the cities in East Africa. You must know that in East Africa, this is the result of the East African government's biased policies that prioritize inland areas. .

In the 1970s, East Africa's territory was still mainly in the east, so the industry was basically deployed in the eastern region. However, in the 1980s, as East Africa developed the central region, a large number of backward production capacities were transferred to the central region, promoting the rise of heavy industrial bases in the central region. .

 However, compared with the eastern coastal region, the overall strength of the East African interior is still weaker. After all, the current technology center of the world is in Europe, and the eastern coast can more conveniently connect to the world market.

“my country’s inland areas currently have a good level of development and have become competitive with the eastern coastal areas. However, except for the central and eastern areas, the economic development of other areas in the country is seriously lagging behind, especially the northern areas that were included in my country’s territory earlier.”

Of course, in the mid-to-late 1980s, as East Africa's education, economy, and R&D capabilities improved, East Africa prioritized the deployment of several key industrial fields in the central region, including electricity, automobiles, railways, etc., before barely achieving the industrial level of central and eastern areas. of flush.

“Now as the economic cooperation between East Africa and the Abyssinian Empire deepens, we should deploy a group of industries close to the Abyssinian Empire to reduce production costs and achieve further optimization of the industry.”

 Although there are a large number of backward industries in East Africa, these industries are relatively advanced in backward areas, especially in remote areas of East Africa.

The northern region of East Africa is not a small place. It mainly includes five major regions: the Azande Plateau, the upper Nile Basin, the Ethiopian Plateau, the Lake Turkana coastal plain, and the Somali Plain. The overall population size has reached more than 10 million. Although it is far from the central and eastern regions, from a national perspective, it has an advantage over the south and west for the time being, so the focus of this transfer of backward industries is the northern region.

Of course, there is another consideration in moving these backward industries to the north, and that is to be close to the regional market. In the land economy, East Africa itself occupies the central and southern African continent except Cape Town, so the land external economy is mainly northwest West Africa. , and North Africa across the Sahara Desert.

After these old equipment introduced in the 1970s are moved to the north, they can continue to shine and complete their final care tasks. As for the end point, they will be completely eliminated.

Moreover, it is much easier to move equipment to the north now than it was in the 1970s and 1980s. With the construction and popularization of East African railways and roads, the transportation conditions in East Africa today are not a little better than those more than ten years ago.

●In the past, when East African industries moved inland, industrial equipment relied on human and animal power to complete the work, which was much more difficult than it is now.

“The north, especially the northwest region, is our country’s bridgehead to West Africa. With the development of the royal territory of Sigmaringen, the Belgian Congo, and the German Cameroon, the northwest will be an important part of East Africa’s foreign trade in the future.”

“The central and eastern regions must further optimize their industries, especially in the fields of railways, steel, electricity, automobiles, and equipment manufacturing, expand the advantages of emerging industries, and improve the production efficiency of traditional industries. In the field of traditional industries, East Africa will continue to work hard in the future. The goal of the Central and Eastern Region is to catch up with European and American countries.”

As for the west, East Africa's positioning of the west, especially the coast, has a relatively high starting point. Regions such as Luanda, Cabinda, Benguela, etc. are all targeting Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. Therefore, in addition to developing traditional In addition to industry, we will also focus on developing emerging industries.

 The development strategy of East Africa in the central region is the same. After all, the eastern coast of East Africa is anchored to the Asian and European markets, the inland areas are anchored to the national market, and the western part of the country will be anchored to the European and American (mainly Latin American) markets in the future.

Argentina and Brazil, both countries with good purchasing power, are important markets that cannot be ignored, especially Argentina. A large amount of agricultural products are exported to Europe, and the per capita living standard is catching up with developed countries and regions. The East African and western routes are directly connected to South America. So there is a geographical advantage.

Furthermore, Latin America is rich in various natural resources, which can facilitate the purchase of raw materials for coastal cities in western East Africa, and the resource endowment of the west itself is not bad.

In its previous life, Angola was one of the resource-rich countries in Africa, especially the richest in oil resources. In addition, it is located close to the industrial zone in central East Africa, so it meets all the requirements for industrial development.

With the construction of two main railway lines, it will inevitably be connected with central and eastern China in the future, becoming the main industrial distribution area in East Africa.

Therefore, East Africa attaches far greater importance to the west, especially Angola, than the north. In the final analysis, backward industries are the leftover soup in East Africa. The northern region can only eat the leftovers. However, East Africa's arrangements for Angola are obviously not like this.

In addition to the above areas, only the southern region has no detailed planning. East Africa is not active in developing the southern region. One reason is that there is only the British Cape Town colony in the south. Relations between the two sides are poor, natural trade exchanges are infrequent, and there is a buffer zone. effect.

Although northern East Africa also borders the United Kingdom, Egypt, including the Sudan region, has extremely poor transportation conditions. As for British Somaliland, it is too small to pose a threat to East Africa.

 (End of this chapter)