African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1214 The Fourth Five-Year Plan
East Africa's economic performance from 1910 to 1915 was in no way inferior to that of the previous decade. During the first two five-year plans, East Africa had decades of accumulation and was able to make a breakthrough, while the Third Five-Year Plan caught up with a good historical opportunity period.

With the arrival of 1916, East Africa’s “Fourth Five-Year Plan” was officially launched and implemented, and targeted measures were taken to address some of the problems East Africa encountered after the launch of the new economic policy.

The Fourth Five-Year Plan has non-full planning characteristics and a completely different meaning, which to a certain extent reflects the transformation of the economic functions of East African governments.

Due to the implementation of the new economic policy in East Africa, the plan and the market were carried out in parallel during the Third Five-Year Plan period. There is no doubt that this sudden change in the economic field has a huge impact on the country's economy.

However, with the help of the historical opportunity of World War I, the Third Five-Year Plan still had a smooth landing. However, this does not mean that the problems it exposed should be ignored because of the economic prosperity.

In particular, the lack of macro-control measures on the free market has led to the wild growth of the free market in East Africa, exposing a large number of social and economic problems.

Therefore, the change from the Five-Year Plan to the Five-Year Plan means a major change in the governance model of the East African government in the economic field.

In Ernst’s words: “Taking into account the unified and coordinated development of planning and the market, while giving full play to the dual advantages of government and the market, is an important feature of the future economic development of East Africa.”

Compared with the Third Five-Year Plan, the main highlight of the Fourth Five-Year Plan is not only the changes in its ideological core and guiding principles, but also its prominent guiding significance for the development of the national economy.

In the era of fully planned economy, the East African government was an all-powerful patriarch who “could manage everything”, but now it focuses on functions such as guidance and instruction, and even has added the content of “service”.

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Rhine City.

After the Fourth Five-Year Plan began, the East African governments once again entered a busy phase. Coupled with the window period of World War I, the work intensity of the East African governments reached a new level.

Ernst: "At this stage, the eastern, central and western parts of our country have made brilliant construction achievements, forming an economic core in the middle zone with the central railway line as the main axis."

“However, the economic development of other parts of the country cannot be neglected either, so during the Fourth Five-Year Plan, the government will focus on the Great Lakes region and the southern region to develop regional economies and build a new economic landscape for East Africa.”

The Great Lakes region and the southern region can be said to be the regions with the best agricultural and industrial infrastructure conditions in East Africa respectively.

The Great Lakes region has a large area of ​​arable land, excellent rainfall and heat conditions, and relatively flat terrain. It has always been the most important agricultural area in East Africa.

As for the south, the areas that are basically worth mentioning are South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and other regions in the past. These areas have the richest mineral resources in East Africa, but in the past they have not been fully utilized and developed except along the coast.

In fact, if East Africa had chosen the southern region for development and construction in the early stages, it would undoubtedly have greatly saved industrial and economic development costs.

"The Great Lakes region is the reservoir of the empire's agriculture and is responsible for the important task of developing the country's agriculture. In the past few decades, it has always been the most important agricultural region in our country and the 'iron rice bowl' of all citizens. However, if the economy is to develop in a comprehensive and coordinated manner, the Great Lakes region cannot rely solely on agriculture."

“So during the Fourth Five-Year Plan, developing the Great Lakes region was an important task for the government, especially developing cities along the lakes, such as Kampala and Kisumu.”

“With the Great Lakes region as the core, we will create a new economic pole in East Africa and drive the high-quality and high-speed development of the northern economy.”

Kampala, Kisumu and Mwanza are all important cities along the Great Lakes region, especially Kisumu and Mwanza. They used to be strong economic cities in East Africa. However, in recent years, as the economic focus of East Africa has been shifted to the middle belt, they have fallen behind the main force.

Ernst went on to say: “We should build an economic belt along the Great Lakes region, making full use of the Great Lakes’ advantages in water transportation to achieve material allocation.”

The advantages of the Great Lakes region are obvious. With the largest lake in East Africa, the water transportation is very developed. In addition to the East African National Canal Plan and the construction of railways and highways, it can be said that the Great Lakes region has become an important inland transportation hub in East Africa. In particular, the food, rubber, timber, minerals and other resources in the Great Lakes region used to be transported by water first, and then sent to the whole country or other parts of the world by rail or road.

The shortcoming of the Great Lakes region is probably its mineral resources. However, this does not mean that the Great Lakes region is not rich in mineral resources, but rather that it lacks the basic resources for early industrial development, such as iron ore and coal mines.

The mineral resources in the Great Lakes region are mainly characterized by a wide variety and wide distribution. For example, in Uganda in the past, there were more than 50 types of proven mineral resources, including petroleum, mica, feldspar, limestone, phosphate, iron, vermiculite, tantalum, vanadium, copper, cobalt, tungsten and so on.

This is just one area in Uganda. You can imagine how rich the resources in the Great Lakes region are. However, if you want to utilize these resources, you must have a certain industrial foundation.

In the early days of East Africa, the Great Lakes region has always been the largest gold production area in East Africa, and East Africa's relatively scarce tungsten resources are mainly concentrated locally and in the province of Hesse.

There is no doubt that the Great Lakes region made a huge contribution to the early development of East Africa, because it is the most important agricultural area in East Africa and the first place to develop gold mines in East Africa, providing a lot of funds for the early industrial development of East Africa.

"The overall idea for industrial development in the Great Lakes region is to first complete the construction of the Imperial Dam and port renovation, then relocate residents from the flooded areas, reintegrate local resources, and form an economic and industrial zone around the Great Lakes region, focusing on the development of shipping, metal smelting, fisheries, electric power and energy, and other industries."

There is naturally no need to say much about the shipping industry. The Great Lakes region is vast and has always been the most developed area for inland water transportation in East Africa.

Metal smelting naturally makes use of the rich metal mineral resources in the Great Lakes region, which is also one of the regions with the richest fishery resources in East Africa. As for electric energy, this involves the abundant hydropower resource potential of the Great Lakes region.

This is deeply related to the climate and topography of the Great Lakes region.

The Great Lake is the former Lake Victoria. From the map, the Great Lake is actually a huge lake located in the middle of the Great Rift Valley of East Africa.

This results in a number of mountains distributed in the east-west direction of the Great Lakes region, while the north-south direction is relatively flat. The rivers originating from these mountains are also the main source of water for the Great Lakes region.

The Great Lakes region is an important rainy area in East Africa, adjacent to the Congo Basin. Although its rainfall is slightly inferior to that of the Congo rainforest, it is also very sufficient.

The most difficult thing is that the seasonal distribution of precipitation in the Great Lakes region is very even, with humid and rainy weather throughout, which further enhances the potential for local hydropower resource development.

Therefore, the East African government intends to make full use of the local terrain and climate to build a number of hydroelectric power stations to provide large amounts of cheap electricity to the Great Lakes region and the eastern and northern regions of East Africa.

The industrial and economic development of the Great Lakes region will undoubtedly strongly drive the economic development of northern East Africa.

In fact, the Great Lakes region belongs to the eastern region in the geographical definition of East Africa, but its geographical location is close to the northern part of East Africa. It is also the most suitable place for large-scale development in the north of East Africa at the current stage.

This is very important. In the past, areas around the Great Lakes region, such as Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, etc., were all places with relatively good economic development in Africa.

And if we look further north, South Sudan, Central Africa, Somalia and the like basically have no bottom line in the African region.

Although these areas are certainly very different from their previous lives under East African rule, there is no doubt that under the same conditions, the development of the Great Lakes region will definitely be smoother than other northern regions.

The northern part of East Africa actually also occupies Chad, Sudan, Cameroon, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and other places in the past.

Either the area is too small, the climate is harsh, or the terrain is too complex. For example, the area occupied by East Africa in the former Sudan, except for the small plain in Gezira which has farming conditions, most of the rest is desert with scarce water resources. The Ethiopian area occupied by East Africa is surrounded by mountains and difficult to develop. Cameroon and Gabon are covered with dense rainforests.

(End of this chapter)