African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1078: Navy Trip to South America

In addition to automobiles, East African home appliances were particularly eye-catching at the Nanyang Industrial Exposition.

"Electric kettle, electric tea kettle, electric coffee pot, what's the difference between these three!"

"I won't say much about electric kettles. Their main function is to boil water. Electric tea kettles are special appliances we launched for your country's tea culture. Electric coffee pots are similar to tea pots and are specifically used for making coffee. The biggest difference between them and traditional stoves is that they both use electricity to generate heat to heat liquids instead of fire."

"What if I use an electric kettle to make tea or coffee?"

In response to the inquiry from the Far East Empire customer, the East African staff said, "Sir, of course you can do that. These items may have similar functions, but they are more to meet different needs. Ordinary people may not care about these, but people with a certain style or status prefer to be innovative. For example, tea or coffee can be cooked in a rice cooker, but this does not prevent many nobles or businessmen from using special utensils."

Equally interesting conversations could be heard in the East African Pavilion. This Nanyang Industrial Exposition would open the eyes of many people in the Far East Empire, especially giving them a deeper understanding of the development of external industrial civilization.

……

While East Africa was promoting its products in the Far East Empire through the Nanyang Industrial Exposition, a sizable East African fleet was marching towards America in the Atlantic Ocean.

The fleet, consisting of two dreadnoughts, two pre-dreadnoughts and three cruisers, headed westward along the ocean currents near the equator.

A fleet consisting of two dreadnoughts is definitely a big deal at the moment. Apart from Britain, only two countries can do it, namely Germany and East Africa. The destination of this East African fleet is South America.

If the exchanges between East Africa and the Far Eastern Empire were based on making friends through culture, then the exchanges with other regions were more based on the use of force for deterrence.

In order to expand the market, East Africa participated in the Nanyang Industrial Exposition held by the Far East Empire, which was a completely peaceful and friendly exchange platform.

However, East Africa is not so good-tempered towards South American countries, which are emerging markets valued by East Africa. After all, East Africa is essentially also a member of the great powers.

Rio de Janeiro.

As the capital of Brazil, the most powerful country in South America, Rio de Janeiro developed rapidly in the 19th century and is now in no way inferior to other cities in the world.

Of course, the development of Rio de Janeiro does not have universal significance for Brazil. Rio de Janeiro is the only city in the whole of Brazil that looks somewhat decent. If we look at the whole country of Brazil, Brazil is now either an undeveloped virgin land or a large plantation and farm. Compared with the world's industrial powers, the whole of Brazil is just a big rural area.

It is no wonder that Brazil performed very poorly in the Paraguayan War in the last century. Although Brazil won the war, Brazil is much larger than Paraguay, not to mention that at that time Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina joined forces to deal with Paraguay.

"This is Rio de Janeiro. It looks well developed and similar to Luanda," said Rear Admiral Cher of the East African Navy.

As the capital of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro currently has a population of only a few hundred thousand people. This population level is considered a big city in East Africa, but there are a lot of big cities in East Africa compared to Brazil.

"General, Rio de Janeiro is the capital of Brazil and has the best port conditions in Brazil, so it has developed quite well. However, the overall development level of Brazil is a bit hard to describe. You should know that Brazil's founding history is much longer than that of the empire, but now it has been left far behind by us." Ambassador Lecamon said. Chel: "I don't know much about the situation in Brazil, but they are indeed not as developed as East Africa."

Ambassador Lecamon said: "As for population, as early as the middle of the last century, Brazil's population exceeded 10 million, but now Brazil's population is only more than 20 million, less than 30 million, so it is normal for Brazil to develop slowly. The population growth rate of our country and the United States is much higher than that of Brazil."

Chel: "After all, Brazil's former colonial master, Portugal, didn't have a large population either. It's already pretty good that Brazil has surpassed Portugal in terms of population. Unlike East Africa, the Far East Empire and the German region, the two main sources of immigrants, have populations that are not comparable to that of tiny Portugal."

Lecamon: "In addition to population, Brazil's national management is also very chaotic. Now Argentina is more attractive to immigrants than Brazil. You know, Brazil's conditions were much better than Argentina before."

In Lecamon's opinion, Brazil is not inferior to Argentina in terms of natural endowments, and it even far surpassed Argentina before. Although Argentina's development was also very poor in the first and middle 19th century, after the 19th century, it can be said that Argentina is in a period of rapid development. In terms of wealth alone, Argentina, an agricultural country, even surpasses East Africa and many European countries.

With the support of foreign countries led by Britain, Argentina's population has increased nearly five times from the 1970s to the present, the railway has reached more than 30,000 kilometers, annual wheat exports exceed 3 million tons, and beef exports reach more than 300,000 tons, making Argentina one of the few rich countries in the world, with a per capita income level comparable to that of industrial powers such as Germany and France.

At the same time, Brazil was not only thriving, but also deteriorating. With the Republican government coming to power, the Brazilian government launched a fierce internal struggle. Not only was it poor, but it was also in turmoil. With the joining of East Africa in the 1990s, Brazil's domestic politics became more turbulent, forming various forces such as pro-American, pro-British, pro-East African, pro-German, pro-French, pro-Portuguese...

Among them, the countries with the strongest influence on Brazil's domestic politics are Britain, the United States and East Africa. These three countries all attach great importance to Brazil, and their attitudes are different.

However, East Africa's influence on Brazil is slightly weaker than that of Britain and the United States. This is normal. After all, in the last century, East Africa, which was also an agricultural country, was not much stronger than Brazil.

Moreover, compared with Britain, the United States and even France, they have been dealing with Brazil much earlier than East Africa, so they have formed a complex network of interests in Brazil.

The situation began to change in the 1990s, when East Africa had just defeated Portugal and Britain in South Africa and the East African country emerged as a military power in Brazil for the first time.

After all, Brazil's suzerain was Portugal. Although Portugal had long since declined, it was still not comparable to Brazil at the time. Defeating Portugal would cause a certain shock to Brazil, not to mention that Portugal also had an extremely powerful ally, Britain, at the time.

It was in the 1990s that East Africa began to strengthen trade and exchanges with South America, and the 1990s and early 2000s were a period of rapid industrial development in East Africa.

With the dual blessing of influence and industrial strength, the trade volume between East Africa and Brazil has risen rapidly. Now East Africa has become Brazil's third largest trading partner.

The emphasis here on industry is because if East Africa were still the agricultural country it once was, trade between it and Brazil would not be smooth sailing.

Because Brazil is a typical agricultural country and its climate is similar to that of East Africa, East Africa was actually Brazil's main competitor in the international agricultural market in the early days. For example, Brazil's rubber industry was defeated by East Africa.

Of course, East Africa is now also Brazil's primary rival in the agricultural sector. As East Africa began to transform into an industrial country in the 1990s, it was able to establish more trade relations with Brazil. And because of the change in East Africa's foreign policy toward South America, the East African government offered certain benefits to buy off Brazil, giving the two countries more room for trade.

The method is quite simple. East Africa purchases agricultural products from Brazil, and then processes and sells them to other regions. For example, East Africa purchases coffee raw materials from Brazil, processes them into finished products in East Africa, and then sells them to the Far East, the Middle East and other regions through East Africa's trade network.

(End of this chapter)