African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1036 The Second Five-Year Railway Plan
From the 19th century to the early 20th century, steel production was an important reference data for a country's national strength. As the food of industry, steel production can be used to measure the scale of a country's industrial and infrastructure construction. This is also the main reason why East Africa put the steel industry first when setting up its industrial development plan.

As a powerful country, it is undeniable that East Africa has achieved amazing results in many fields, but the steel production can reflect that the current East African industry still has a long way to go. Although East Africa's steel production ranks third or fourth, among the top countries, East Africa's per capita steel share is the lowest.

This shows that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the scale of East Africa's steel industry. It also indirectly reflects that there is a big gap between East Africa's current level of industrialization and that of advanced industrial countries. Therefore, during the Second Five-Year Plan, continuing to increase East Africa's steel production capacity is an unchanging goal.

Ernst concluded: "The steel industry provides the most basic raw materials for various industries, including railways, shipbuilding, automobile manufacturing, power equipment manufacturing, construction, engineering construction, etc., which all require a large amount of steel. Therefore, steel production is an important link that restricts the development of other industries. In the stage of accelerating industrialization construction in my country, steel companies must provide more steel production for national construction."

"At the same time, with the progress of the times, East Africa also needs more special, high-quality and diverse steel materials, which is particularly important for the development of emerging industries and the defense industry. Therefore, the upgrading of the steel industry should not only pursue quantity, but also quality, grasp the balance between quantity and quality, and promote the rational development of the national steel industry."

After talking about the development direction of the steel industry, as usual, railway construction still ranked second. The Ministry of Railways summarized the national railway construction plan during the First Five-Year Plan.

Minister of Railways Andrei said: "In the past 30 years, my country has built a total of about 150,000 kilometers of railways, of which 50,000 kilometers were completed during the First Five-Year Plan. During the First Five-Year Plan, the speed of railway construction in my country accelerated significantly, reaching an average of 10,000 kilometers per year."

"In the world, the railway construction is second only to that of the United States. According to the data we have collected, from 1880 to 1890 alone, the United States built more than 10 kilometers of railways each year."

"During the First Five-Year Plan period, the U.S. railway construction sector continued to perform strongly, so my country still has a long way to go in terms of railway construction."

Putting aside the perversion of the United States, East Africa's railway construction is not inferior to any country. However, since the 20th century, East Africa's railway has no longer been satisfied with comparison with countries, but with regional comparison.

Especially North America and Europe, the two largest railway networks in the world. Through the acceleration of the First Five-Year Plan, the total mileage of East Africa's railways still ranks after North America and Europe, making it the third largest railway network in the world.

Andre said: "my country's territory is much larger than that of the United States, and we don't have high-quality waterways like the Great Lakes or the Mississippi River, let alone the dense inland waterway network in Europe. So in theory, my country's demand for railways is much higher than that of European and American countries."

"In my country's railway construction, the central and southern regions are much higher than the northern regions. The central region, which includes the area between the west coast and the east coast, is the most economically and industrially developed and densely populated region in my country. The southern region has also built a large number of railway lines because of its rich mineral resources."

This is normal. Whether it is population, urban density, economic development level, or distribution of mineral resources, northern East Africa is obviously inferior to other regions in East Africa. Therefore, it is reasonable that the railways in the north are relatively sparse.

"Currently, in the railway construction in the northern region, in addition to the three main railway lines, there are only two important branch railways, one reaching the border between the Abyssinian Empire and our country, and the other reaching the Nile River Basin. In addition, there are only a few minor branch railways in the northwestern Somalia region."

"The north has the longest land border in our country, and there are many countries in the north, the situation is complicated, and the lack of railway construction in the north is a major security risk to the national defense security of East Africa."

Andre's words were a bit irritating for the northern countries or colonies in East Africa. As the only infrastructure maniac on the African continent, the transportation in the north, which Andre said lacks railway construction, is not comparable to any country or colony on the African continent outside East Africa.

Among the countries bordering East Africa, Egypt has the most developed economy, but Egypt has very little demand for railways. After all, Egypt's core territory is basically distributed along the narrow Nile River. To be frank, building a railway along the Nile River can basically meet most of Egypt's needs. The area bordering Egypt and East Africa is mainly Sudan, and there is not even an inch of railroad track in Sudan. Even Egypt is like this. Among other countries bordering East Africa, only the Abyssinian Empire and the Kingdom of South Germany have pitiful railway lines, and the railways of the two countries are the overseas extensions of the East African railway network.

According to the situation in the previous life, even if the East African railway is not developed now, by the next century, there will probably not be many railways added to other regions of Africa except the North African Mediterranean region.

Therefore, what Andre said about the threat to national security should be understood in the opposite way. East Africa is the biggest threat to neighboring countries and colonies.

Of course, national defense and security must be handled with caution. No one can say for sure whether East African neighbors will be able to take charge in the future, although the possibility of this happening is even lower than the probability of aliens invading the earth.

"In order to meet the needs of social and economic development in the north, as well as national defense and security, the Ministry of Railways plans to upgrade railway construction in the northern region during the Second Five-Year Plan."

"During the Second Five-Year Plan, the overall goal of my country's railway construction is still to reach 50,000 kilometers. That is to say, when the Second Five-Year Plan is completed, the national railway will reach at least 200,000 kilometers."

"At the same time, we will optimize and upgrade some railway lines, continue to build the African Continental Bridge, connect the economic ties between the east and west coasts and the inland, promote regional industrial division of labor and cooperation across the country, and help East Africa's industrialization process continue to progress."

During the Second Five-Year Plan, East Africa's railway construction still adopted a relatively conservative approach. After all, with the completion of the First Five-Year Plan, East Africa's industrial and infrastructure capabilities had greatly increased, and it was fully capable of building more railways.

Of course, even if it is a conservative plan, it is only slightly more conservative than those of American railway companies in the world. The 50,000-kilometer railway construction plan is almost equivalent to building another German railway.

Germany is already the country with the most developed railways in Europe. According to the railway construction in East Africa, excluding some difficult-to-develop areas in East Africa, such as the southwest and northeast deserts, the western tropical rainforests, some mountains and large lakes, when the Second Five-Year Plan is completed, the gap between East Africa and the entire European railway network will be basically negligible.

Moreover, the internal situation of the European railway network is complicated. For example, Tsarist Russia and Nordic countries adopt different railway gauges. This means that although the European railway mileage is longer than that of East Africa, the utilization efficiency may not be higher than that of East Africa.

Of course, at this stage, East Africa's total population and economy are far from comparable to Europe as a whole. However, due to economic development factors, the economic benefits of European railways are definitely higher than those of East Africa in terms of passenger and logistics volume.

Europe's population is more than four times that of East Africa, and East Africa's mainland area is larger than Europe. In addition, many European countries have extremely developed industries, which means that East African railways are destined to be unable to compete with Europe in terms of revenue in the short term.

In this era, only the United States can compete with Europe, but even the United States still has a considerable gap with Europe as a whole, so East Africa's industrial development still has a long way to go. Now East Africa can even only be compared with a single country in Europe in terms of industry and national strength.

(End of this chapter)