African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1191 Things are different now
In other words, Brazil is at least thirty years behind East Africa. However, this is certainly not the way to calculate it. After all, East Africa has achieved overtaking by taking advantage of major opportunities provided by several rounds of world economic crises, two five-year plans, and the First World War. This process is enough for other countries that develop at a normal pace to take hundreds of years.

Today, East Africa views Brazil with the same standard that industrial powers use to view backward agricultural countries. Although Brazil's industrial scale is good compared with other colonies or backward countries, it can only be a general among dwarfs.

Take Brazil's industry for example, most of it is light industry, and most of its heavy industry is mining. Moreover, Brazil's economy is mainly controlled by foreign capital, so the lifeline of Brazil's industry is not in its own hands.

Rhodes said: "If Mr. Pereira has been to other cities in East Africa, he will understand that what I said is true. The popularity of cars in East Africa is very alarming. Basically, you can see this kind of traffic in any city."

"Among our East African cities, Dar es Salaam ranks first in economy, but the gap between other cities and Dar es Salaam is not that big, such as Luanda, Cabinda, Beira, New Hamburg Port City on the coast, New Frankfurt, Mbeya, Karare and our capital inland, all of which are large cities with a population of over 500,000."

The only cities in East Africa with a population of over one million are Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, and both have just over one million people. This is far from big cities like London, New York, and Paris. However, there are an outrageous number of big cities in East Africa with a population of over 500,000, which is estimated to rank first in the world.

These larger medium-sized cities are also the main reason why the population of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa is not growing as fast as the leading cities in other major powers.

The economy of East Africa is distributed in a star-like pattern. Whether in the coastal areas or inland areas, the economy is relatively balanced, so the population of East Africa naturally does not need to crowd into Dar es Salaam and Mombasa.

Brazil is the opposite in this regard. Most of the Brazilian population is concentrated in a few coastal cities such as Rio de Janeiro.

Pereira had no doubt about what Rhodes said. He said, "That's right. Our participants in this conference mainly arrived in Dar es Salaam through two ways."

"One is to take a ship directly by sea like I did, and the other is to take the railway between Cabinda and Luanda. We already have many companies that arrived in Dar es Salaam a few days ago."

There are many Brazilian companies participating in the exhibition this time. They will choose different routes according to the characteristics of their products. Those who are not in a hurry will naturally choose sea transportation, those who have time requirements will go through the East African railway, and some companies will go along the way.

After all, there are many Brazilian companies dealing with East Africa, and most of them conduct business on the west coast of East Africa. So instead of coming to the east coast, it is better to send their own people from the west coast to Dar es Salaam to exhibit their products.

Pereira went on to say: “Along the way, after we left South America, we went directly through the Cape of Good Hope and stayed in Maputo and Beira for a while.”

"The development of other cities such as New Hamburg, Trawayo, Pemba, and Chinde amazed us. I used to think that Cape Town was the ceiling of urban development in South Africa. It was not until I came to East Africa that I realized that Cape Town was probably not even ranked among the cities in East Africa."

Cape Town is the capital of the British colony of South Africa. When it comes to the fame of cities in southern Africa, many East African cities are probably not as famous as Cape Town. After all, relying on the Cape of Good Hope, a major transportation route, Cape Town has been very famous for hundreds of years.

Many cities in East Africa do not even have a few years of history. Coupled with the long-term policy of isolation, the popularity of many developed cities in inland East Africa is pitifully low.

In response to Pereira's praise, Rhodes joked: "Cape Town has actually developed quite well in recent years. After all, Cape Town was once the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa."

Now Cape Town, once the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa, has in fact been surpassed by many cities in East Africa, which naturally shows the rapid development of East Africa.

Pereira said somewhat bitterly: "Yes! East Africa is definitely a great country. After all, Brazil was established many years earlier than your country, but now we have been left behind by your country and even its shadow cannot be seen!" Cape Town, which Rhodes mentioned as the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa, may not be taken seriously by Rhodes, an East African, but Pereira cannot ignore the development of Cape Town.

Because apart from the capital Rio de Janeiro, there is no other city in Brazil that can be compared with Cape Town. In other words, Cape Town, the colonial capital, would rank second in Brazil.

Therefore, the development of Cape Town is actually not bad. On the contrary, due to the rise of the East African economy, Cape Town has also reaped many benefits, because the maritime trade between the east and west coasts of East Africa basically passes through the Cape of Good Hope.

Therefore, the rapid development of East African economy and trade has stimulated the economy of the Cape Town area, and a lot of money can be made just by providing corresponding services to passing East African ships.

If it were not a British colony, Cape Town's urban construction and development might not be inferior to those of East African cities.

After all, the British government is not a charity, so Britain's demands on its South African colonies are greater than its input, which has led to inadequate urban expansion and infrastructure replacement in Cape Town.

Moreover, because of the threat from East Africa, the South African colonies had to invest their remaining limited resources in the military in exchange for British weapons and equipment and to pay protection fees for the Royal Navy.

After all, there are a large number of Boers in South Africa, and some of them may even have a blood feud with East Africa, so the relationship between East Africa and South Africa has not been very good in recent years.

Border trade between the two countries is almost zero. This is mainly because the Boers and the British have suffered losses. East Africa once used economic and trade means to infiltrate the two Boer republics. Therefore, they have learned from their mistakes. Now the South African colonial government has cut off land trade with East Africa.

Of course, in the eyes of the East African government, the behavior of the South African colonial government is completely petty. What kind of country is East Africa now?
It is one of the world's top powers, with a land area of ​​tens of millions, a population of over 100 million, an army of over 400,000, and a naval force that ranks among the top five in the world in terms of the number of warships.

The South African colonies were like a small ant in front of East Africa, the kind that could be easily crushed to death. Therefore, the little tricks of the South African colonies were completely insignificant in the eyes of the East African government. Just having naval warships circling the coast of the South African colonies was enough to deter them.

Today's South African colonies are completely different from the South African Republic of the past. The South African Republic at least has rich inland resources, so the hinterland economy and population are not small, while the cities and population of the South African colonies are basically distributed in coastal areas, and because of the Drakensberg Mountains, there is no hinterland economy, and there are only some scattered pastures in the inland.

Therefore, as long as East Africa attacks the coastal areas of the South African colonies, the entire South African economy will be basically destroyed. The population in its hinterland can be basically ignored. Moreover, because of East Africa, almost half of its inland areas are deserts or semi-arid areas. At most, they raise some sheep as a source of wool for East Africa.

But even so, its capital, Cape Town, is not something that many cities in Brazil, a fake world power, can compare to.

At present, apart from its large land area and rich resources, Brazil has basically nothing to praise, especially its industrial level, which cannot be compared with East Africa.

Pereira now deeply agrees with this point. Just looking at the city of Dar es Salaam, its urban construction, industry, transportation and other fields are far ahead of Rio de Janeiro, which Brazil is proud of.

(End of this chapter)