African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1254 Tin Mine
Of course, it is not wrong to insist that the Indo-Pacific Road Bridge is a land bridge. After all, the definition of a land bridge is "a land passage connecting two oceans, a convenient transportation passage that crosses the continent, takes railways as the backbone, and avoids detours by sea."

The Indo-Pacific Road Bridge meets all these points. It connects the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. After completion, it will indeed be based on railways, and it also meets the point that it will avoid detours by sea in the end.

However, the East African government is still relatively modest, so it still named it the "Indo-Pacific Road Bridge", and of course it cannot afford to lose face.

Ernst said: "This is the current military arrangement for the Kra Isthmus. The General Staff's plan is relatively stable. We cannot ignore the difficulties and pain points of tropical jungle warfare. Instead, we should overcome the unfavorable factors."

"After all, a large area of ​​our country has a tropical rainforest climate, and the Nanyang region is the most important and densely populated area of ​​our country's colonies."

East Africa's colonies in the South Pacific are also the most productive regions overseas in East Africa, with a large amount of natural resources, which even exceeds the Beibu Gulf territory which is endowed with oil resources.

After all, the East African South Sea colonies also have rich oil resources. Although they are inferior to the Beibu Gulf territory, their scale is also quite considerable.

There are countless other mineral resources, such as coal, iron, copper, aluminum, natural gas, tin, etc., which are not available in the Beibu Gulf Territory.

"Whether it is various mineral resources or agricultural conditions, the Nanyang colonies are considered good among all the colonies of other countries. The only thing they lack is the strength of development."

"In the future, the Nanyang region will be our country's mines, plantations and forests, and will be a beneficial supplement to the local economic development."

Ernst's words basically established the core position of the South Sea colonies in the East African colonial system, just like India to Britain and Algeria to France.

The core of the East African South Seas colonies can be divided into four major parts, namely East Kalimantan, Mindanao, Eastern New Guinea, and the newly incorporated Isthmus of Kra territory.

Of these four major colonies, the smallest territory, the Isthmus of Kra, covers an area of ​​more than 50,000 square kilometers, while East Africa's other colonies in the South Pacific are all small islands that are almost invisible.

The straight-line distance from the Isthmus of Kra to New Guinea in East Africa is nearly 5,000 kilometers. If you extend it to the farther Samoa, it will be more than 10,000 kilometers.

Ernst said, "Let's discuss the economic and demographic development of the Kra Isthmus Territory. Finkel, you will introduce it to everyone."

Finkel: "Well, Your Majesty, according to our discussion with the Colonial Department, the arrangements for the Isthmus of Kra are as follows."

"In terms of transportation, the Kra Isthmus is related to the important passage of the Indo-Pacific Road Bridge, so we will build a railway from Satun to Songkhla there."

"The final length of this railway will not exceed 200 kilometers. It is the fastest land link project connecting the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Due to the complex terrain of Shadun, it is impossible for this railway to be a straight line."

“The Indo-Pacific Road and Bridge project includes two port projects, one is the construction of Satun Port and the other is the renovation of Songkhla Port.”

"There is no large-scale modern port in Satun Province, the former Siamese province, so we will select a site to build an important port there to serve the ships traveling between the mainland and the Isthmus of Kra."

"Songkhla itself is a well-developed port, but because it is far from the Chao Phraya River Plain in the heart of Siam, its infrastructure is quite backward and needs large-scale transformation."

Sea-land transport inevitably requires ports as nodes, so the Indo-Pacific Road Bridge cannot be located randomly. Instead, it is necessary to find two ports that are close to each other on the east and west coasts of the Kra Isthmus, and then build railways, highways and other transportation arteries between the two ports.

In fact, a better choice is the Perlis Port in Malaysia in the previous life. The conditions at the Perlis Port are better and it is closer to Songkhla.

However, Perlis had already been occupied by the British, so East Africa had to settle for the next best thing and choose a place in Shatun to build a new port.

Finkel went on to say: "In the future, it is possible to build an alternative line from Phuket to Wanlun, but this is not currently in our plan." "As for the economy, the agricultural development conditions in the Kra Isthmus Territory are far inferior to those in our country, and are suitable for a tropical plantation economy."

"In terms of mineral resources, the dominant resource in this area is tin. The Kra Isthmus has been an important tin producing area in the region since ancient times. We will organize personnel to go to the Kra Isthmus territory to conduct key surveys and analyses of the local tin resources."

Tin is a minor metal that is highly valued in East Africa. With the increase of sophisticated electronic products in East Africa, the demand for tin ore is also increasing year by year.

However, tin ore is a very scarce resource. Its scarcity is not only reflected in East Africa, but also in the whole world. Tin ore is a relatively rare resource. Ten thousand tons of tin ore is enough to be considered as one of the world's top mines.

Fortunately, the demand for it is not large. Even in the past, the global demand was only around a few hundred thousand tons per year.

The tin mining areas in East Africa are currently mainly concentrated in the central region, most of which are small mines, and the development benefits are not as good as those in the South Sea colonies.

Of course, this does not include the undeveloped Isthmus of Kra territory, but only the Lan Fang Overseas Province in East Africa. The Lan Fang Overseas Province is currently the largest source of tin ore in East Africa. There are also tin mines in East Kalimantan, but they are also in the undeveloped stage.

However, the tin reserves in the Isthmus of Kra do have the greatest potential among the East African colonies. There are tin mines in all the provinces of the former Siam throughout the Isthmus of Kra.

In the past, Siam’s tin reserves were even the largest in the world for a period of time, but were later surpassed by other countries due to over-exploitation.

More than 90% of Siam's tin mines are located in the Isthmus of Kra. Except for Ranong and Chumphon provinces, most of Siam's other tin mines in the past were in the hands of East Africa.

In addition, local tin mines are often accompanied by minerals, including ilmenite and tungsten, both of which are of relatively high value.

Of course, this is not clear in East Africa at present, and even Ernst would not have paid attention to the mineral resources in the Isthmus of Kra in his previous life.

The reason why the East African government knows that there are a large number of tin mines in the area is because the Siamese and Malays have a long history of developing local tin mines, and this area is still an important tin producing area.

However, after East African experts conduct on-site inspections, the mineral resource situation of the Kra Isthmus will be presented more clearly to the East African government.

Finkel said: "The main uses of tin ore are tin solder for electronic component circuits and tinplate industry. Both of these main uses have great market prospects. The former is in short supply as the variety of home appliances in my country increases, the output expands, and the maintenance industry and so on, while the latter also has a large gap due to the current strong export of canned products."

Tinplate, also known as tin-plated iron, has the characteristics of corrosion resistance, non-toxicity, high strength, and excellent ductility.

It is widely used in canned food production companies, such as tea packaging boxes, beverage bottles, cigarette boxes, etc., and currently under the stimulation of the European battlefield, the sales of various military food cans are extremely good.

This also lays the foundation for the current huge demand for tin ore in East African industry, so it is reasonable that tin ore, the only advantageous mineral resource in the Isthmus of Kra, has attracted attention.

Finkel went on to say: "As for mineral resources, at present, apart from tin mines, the only thing we know about the Kra Isthmus is some small iron mines, but the local iron mines are not of great economic value."

"Generally speaking, the mineral resources in the Isthmus of Kra are relatively poor. However, the territory of the Isthmus of Kra is only 50,000 square kilometers, and the Siamese have not made much effort to develop the area, so the specific mineral potential still needs to be evaluated by subsequent professionals."

"As for the advantageous resource of tin, after stabilizing the situation in the Kra Isthmus, we will unify the planning and management of all tin mines, thereby increasing local production and replacing the backward mining and smelting model of the Siamese."

(End of this chapter)