African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1063 Thrust
At present, the shipbuilding industry in East Africa has developed to a considerable scale, and it has become a major shipbuilding country in the world in terms of the number of ships manufactured each year.

With the implementation of the Second Five-Year Plan, by 1908 the total tonnage of East African civilian ships had exceeded two million tons, approaching three million tons, accounting for approximately seven percent of the world's civilian shipbuilding industry.

At that time, the total tonnage of German civilian ships was about 3 million tons. The gap between East Africa and Germany was not large. Of course, Britain was even more terrifying. Its total tonnage of civilian ships accounted for more than 50% of the world's total, close to 20 million tons. In the 1990s, the proportion was even higher. Even though Britain's share declined with the development of shipbuilding industries in various countries, it was still far ahead of other countries.

The United Kingdom firmly holds the top spot in the world's shipbuilding industry. In addition to domestic demand, most orders from other countries are also given to the United Kingdom, including countries such as East Africa and Germany. Due to manufacturing costs and technical factors, East Africa and Germany will also order ships from the United Kingdom.

Of course, East Africa has a long history of purchasing or leasing ships from abroad, especially in the past, when sailing ships had not yet completely withdrawn from the stage of history. In order to meet the country's immigration and cargo transportation needs, East Africa even bought ships from small countries such as Italy, the Netherlands, and Greece.

As time goes by, East Africa's domestic shipbuilding industry has developed by leaps and bounds, especially after the Second Five-Year Plan. Most of East Africa's needs can be met by domestic shipbuilding companies.

Moreover, the peak period of East African shipbuilding construction has basically bid farewell to the sailing era. Currently, most of East Africa's shipbuilding industries are at an upper-middle level, and in the military shipbuilding industry, East Africa actually has no obvious technological gap with other powerful countries.

Through two five-year plans, East African port cities were basically fully developed, especially in the coastal areas of the former Angola and Mozambique, and the East African shipbuilding industry expanded nearly three times compared with 1900.

Emerging coastal cities such as Cabinda, Luanda, Benguela, Beira, Quelimane and Maputo are developing rapidly, and the number of important port cities in East Africa has increased from more than 20 in the 1990s to nearly 40.

The rise of these cities has played a huge role in promoting the development of East Africa's shipbuilding industry and enhancing East Africa's status as a maritime power.

This also led to a spectacular scene of prosperity on the east and west coasts of East Africa. After the Suez Canal replaced the Cape of Good Hope, business along the African coast prospered again.

Before the opening of the Suez Canal, most ships had to go around the Cape of Good Hope. After the opening of the Suez Canal, shipping on the east and west coasts of Africa actually experienced a long period of decline. It was not until the 1980s, after the rise of East Africa, that the east coast trade began to resume prosperity.

After the South African War, East Africa became a true two-ocean country. In addition, as East Africa opened up the markets in America, Western Europe and West Africa, commercial trade on the west coast became active again.

Because of the existence of East Africa, the east and west coast routes of Africa have once again become the world's major commercial routes. Before the opening of the Suez Canal, although many ships passed through, Africa was basically undeveloped except for a few coastal areas at that time. Therefore, the only goods that could be traded in Africa were slaves, ivory and other specialties.

The development of Africa by East Africa directly promoted the prosperity of various commodity trade along the coasts of East Africa, which also made it the first time that a country in sub-Saharan Africa exported industrial products.

In short, the East African shipbuilding industry has a good foundation for development. East Africa's own needs alone have greatly promoted the rapid development of East African shipbuilding industry in recent years.

Ernst told government officials: "Emerging industries are not just industries that did not appear in the first industrial revolution, such as electricity, automobiles, petroleum, and chemicals, but also emerging industries that are different from general traditional industries because of major technological innovations, such as steel, railways, and shipbuilding."

"For example, today's steel industry is very different from the past. Although the product is still steel, the technology has undergone tremendous changes. In the past, the steel industry relied on coal, but now it focuses on iron ore and is more efficient in using coal. Various new steel production processes, mainly the Thomas steelmaking process, have made today's steel production very different from that during the First Industrial Revolution, allowing Germany and the United States to surpass Britain in the steel industry." "So this type of emerging industry is different from our general emerging industries. On the surface, it is the same as traditional industries, but the inside has undergone tremendous changes."

Everyone agrees with Ernst's words. Since the 1990s, East Africa's industry has accelerated its development, and everyone has witnessed it. Now the impact of emerging industries on the entire country has penetrated into every area of ​​East Africans' food, clothing, housing and transportation.

To be frank, East Africa has, to some extent, surpassed European and American countries. The people of East Africa can enjoy technological products that many other countries cannot, the most typical of which are home appliances and automobiles.

However, there is still a lot of room for East Africa's industrial scale to grow, and there is still a gap with European and American countries in many areas. This makes East Africa's overall industry still inferior to that of Germany and the United States.

As for Britain, with the Second East African Plan about to be completed, East Africa may have surpassed Britain in industry.

After all, as early as five years ago, East Africa's steel production was almost on par with that of the United Kingdom. Steel production is the most intuitive data for industrial development in this era, so a country's industrial development level can be inferred to a certain extent through steel production. Today, East Africa's steel production is definitely higher than that of the United Kingdom.

Of course, there is certainly a big gap between East Africa and the UK in terms of per capita output. Take per capita steel production for example. In 1900, East Africa's steel production was about million tons, and its population was more than twice that of the UK, while the UK's steel production was close to million tons.

This 5 million tons of steel production does not include the steel production of the British colonies. Therefore, before the First Five-Year Plan, there was a significant gap between the per capita steel possession in East Africa and that in Britain. With the passage of time, this must have improved greatly, but the East African government believed that it would not be easy to surpass Britain.

Of course, when comparing national strength, especially with the industries of other countries, per capita does not mean much to the East African governments. The industrial scale and available resources are what the East African officials pay more attention to.

As a large government country with vast national resources, the East African government believes that its industry is second only to the United States and Germany. After all, East Africa's population size and land area require that it cannot be too low. As for per capita data, it is mainly used in the field of people's livelihood rather than competing with other countries. The higher the level of industrialization in East Africa, the per capita data will naturally increase accordingly.

Moreover, East Africa's domestic industrialization is almost entirely dominated by the government, which naturally makes the East African government pay more attention to the total industrial output rather than per capita data. After all, in the eyes of many people, East Africa's industrial development is almost entirely driven by the government.

In summary, as the Second Five-Year Plan draws to a close, changes in East Africa are almost visible to the naked eye, especially in industrial construction.

The upgrading of emerging industries and traditional industries has brought unexpected results to the East African governments. Due to the rise of emerging industries, the Second Five-Year Plan has exceeded the psychological expectations of the East African governments. This is a detail that has been ignored by the East African governments in the past.

During the First Five-Year Plan, emerging industries were vigorously developed and promoted. However, during the Second Five-Year Plan, with the further development of emerging industries, more obvious impetus was generated, allowing East Africa to experience a faster development speed than during the First Five-Year Plan.

(End of this chapter)