African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1147: Trade Prosperity
There are many East African companies like Carson Department Store that are eyeing the Congolese market. Many companies in Cabinda and Kinshasa are involved, and even companies and capital from more distant cities such as Luanda, Lobito and Benguela have gotten involved.

This will obviously cause a stir in the small Belgian Congo, and in the end it will depend on who has the better skills and becomes the final winner.

Of course, the Belgian Congo was ultimately no more than a colonial market with a population of several hundred thousand. There were several cities in East Africa whose populations exceeded that of the Belgian Congo, so the competition in the Belgian Congo was just a minor matter for the East African governments.

Today, Europe is the most important global market for East Africa. In addition, many places in Asia, Africa and Latin America are also very good. In comparison, Belgium's Congo colonial market can only be regarded as an appetizer.

……

Rhine City.

East Africa's transportation sector has been very busy recently, with railways, roads, waterways and shipping all in full swing.

A steady stream of supplies is imported from the inland of East Africa to the coastal areas, then transported to Europe and other regions through East African ports, and finally rushed back to East Africa.

Europe's demand alone is enough to make the East African government feel overwhelmed, not to mention that East Africa has to take care of not only Europe, but also the huge ambition of many markets such as Asia, Africa and Latin America.

John Lear, director of the East African Maritime Administration, reported: "At present, the total tonnage of our registered merchant ships has exceeded 5 million tons, of which more than 3 million tons are responsible for the transportation of goods to the European market. At the same time, merchant ships from Germany and Austria-Hungary are also serving us. Including other countries, there are about 130,000 tons of merchant ships in the world that directly or indirectly serve our trade."

Since the Third Five-Year Plan, East Africa's civilian shipbuilding industry has been working at full capacity to produce ocean-going ships, increasing the total tonnage of East African merchant ships from more than three million tons to more than five million tons.

This was also due to the influence of the reconciliation treaty between East Africa and Britain at that time. In the first year of the reconciliation between the two countries, East Africa did follow the British arrangements and did not make much naval action, which enabled East Africa to concentrate on expanding the civilian shipbuilding industry at that time.

"At present, the trade volume between us and the German region is extremely large. It can be said that a large number of merchant ships in the German region are serving between us and the German region. As a third country, our merchant ships have undertaken the main tasks."

Currently, among the commercial ships of the three German countries, about seven million tons serve between East Africa and Germany, which can be said to be a very large scale.

After all, the total registered merchant ships of the three German countries, namely Germany, East Africa and Austro-Hungary, were only more than 10 million tons, among which East Africa ranked first, Germany ranked second, and Austro-Hungary ranked last. Almost all of Germany's merchant ships had to do business in East Africa.

The main reason was that under the threat of Britain, Russia and France, many European countries were forced to restrict trade with Germany.

Take wheat for example. Although Germany is barely self-sufficient in food, this is the case when it comes to crops such as wheat, barley, and potatoes.

Wheat was one of Germany's important staple foods, but before the war, Germany's self-sufficiency rate was only 80%, and there was a 20% gap every year that had to be imported from other countries.

A large part of this 20 percent gap came from Tsarist Russia, but now Russia has cut off trade with Germany.

In this situation, East African wheat with poor quality has an opportunity. Although its quality is certainly not as good as that of the East European plains, it is large in quantity, sufficient in food and cheap.

The wheat-producing area in East Africa is not small to begin with. With the application of water conservancy facilities and agricultural technology in recent years, the wheat harvest in East Africa has been able to reach more than two seasons a year, and the unit yield has also been greatly increased, which can fully meet the needs of the entire Germany.

Germany even needs to import wheat, a staple food, so it naturally has a large gap in non-staple crops such as meat, eggs, milk, fruits, vegetables, etc. The warring parties often have millions of troops. In this case, a large number of laborers are sent to the battlefield, and on the contrary, there is a large gap in the agricultural and industrial population. In addition, the army's consumption is significantly higher than usual, so Germany's wheat imports must be higher than before the war. According to the East African government's calculations, it should be around 30%.

Fortunately, although wheat is an important staple food crop for the Germans, it is not the only choice. Napoleon used potatoes from European farmers to feed his army.

Of course, as the main raw material for bread, wheat is an important guarantee of the army's combat effectiveness. Wheat must be given priority to ensure the supply of the army. This is also the main reason why Germany urgently needs to import large quantities of wheat from East Africa.

After all, at this time, Europeans' pursuit of bread was basically equated with their quality of life. A certain madman in World War II came to power with bread as his slogan, and the Soviet Union used black bread as an important guarantee for the combat effectiveness of the Soviet troops on the front line. They even had to add sawdust to increase their sense of fullness due to food shortages. The collapse of the Russian government during World War I was also due to the people's slogan of wanting bread, not war.

John Lear went on to say: “The pressure on port operations across the country is relatively high. In recent years, we have built and renovated more than 20 modern container ports. However, Europe is not short of related facilities, which adds trouble to cargo dispatch.”

Containers are also a powerful weapon in East Africa's transportation industry. Since 1908, East Africa has begun to promote the use of unified standard containers in national cargo transportation.

To further strengthen the intermodal transport between railways, roads and sea routes, it is necessary to upgrade and transform the existing ports in East Africa. After all, although containers are convenient, they also require large equipment to achieve lifting.

Today, major ports in East Africa have basically achieved this goal, but the situation is different in countries outside East Africa, such as Germany. Some small ports do not have large equipment to load and unload containers. However, this is not something East Africa should consider. East Africa only needs to transport the goods.

One of the major advantages of containers is that they facilitate rail transportation. Many materials can be transported directly to the front line via the port’s railways, so Germany is quite satisfied with containers.

At the beginning of the war, many military supplies exported from East Africa were delivered directly to the front line in boxes to meet the needs of the German army, such as medicines, medical cotton, etc.

At this point, the German army was still very satisfied with East African products. Not only were they in large quantity, but they were also of very high quality. This was inevitable. East Africa did not sell inferior products as good ones just because the war broke out suddenly. After all, Ernst had already begun preparations for this war.

On the other hand, the situation in the United States is different. American companies were not prepared, and after the war broke out suddenly, many American companies did not have time to produce after receiving orders, so the quality of many battlefield products was worrying.

The result is that the warring countries in Europe now choose East Africa for some important military supplies, especially medical products, which are related to the life and death of soldiers and cannot be taken lightly.

As for the "black-hearted cotton" of the United States and the "medical cotton" produced for battlefields in East Africa, only simple feedback from the front line is needed. Under normal circumstances, the purchasing departments in the rear of various countries should know how to choose.

In short, in the early stages of the war, East Africa gained the first-mover advantage in the commercial competition between East Africa and the United States, while American companies had not even set up production lines and could only watch large amounts of money flow into the pockets of East Africans.

Of course, the United States will certainly be able to fill these gaps later, but although the European market brought the most benefits during World War I, markets outside of Europe are equally important. By the time the United States achieved results in Europe, East Africa had also gained advantages in other regions. As the saying goes, one step slow leads to all steps slow.

Although the United States was the world's largest economy before the war, East Africa is now not much inferior to the United States, especially in the industrial field. East Africa is now at the same level as the United States and has surpassed Germany.

This can be most directly reflected in the steel production. Currently, East Africa's steel production has reached more than 30 million tons. Due to the pre-war economic crisis, the United States has only just recovered to over 30 million tons even with the temporary expansion. Judging from steel production alone, East Africa has become the world's largest steel producer.

The steel production of East Africa and the United States is both over 30 million tons, while Germany, which ranks third, has only 13 million tons, less than half of East Africa and the United States. Other countries cannot even compare with these three countries.

(End of this chapter)