African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 913 Foreign Capital
Of course, this is a bit sophistry. With the current national strength of East Africa, it is no exaggeration to say that unless the world powers join forces, they cannot threaten the East African mainland. If a single country wants to invade East Africa, it is basically impossible for such a situation to occur.

"Mr. Hull, let's not talk about irrelevant things, let's talk about business. After all, national affairs are issues that the top leaders consider, and we little people can only provide support within our own capabilities. For example, the economic field is no less important to the country than the military." Maxim said.

Hull: "You are right. This time our company is mainly going to increase the purchase of agricultural products from East Africa. The world economy has improved recently, so we plan to expand the raw materials for textile products. On this basis, we plan to import a batch of cotton from Luanda."

Hull did not mention the specific quantity and price, naturally in order to let East Africa make more concessions. In fact, in the trade between the two countries, East Africa is at a disadvantage. After all, East Africa is an agricultural country, so it can only export low value-added goods such as agricultural products and minerals to Germany.

But this is not important for the city of Luanda. Angola has accumulated a batch of agricultural products and urgently needs to find a way out.

After all, Angola used to be the source of raw materials for Portugal. Now that it knows how to expand the scale of local agricultural planting on this basis and increase production, the pursuit of sales has naturally become more urgent.

"We can reduce the price by 10%, but your purchase volume must be more than 1,000 kilograms, otherwise we can only reduce it by half."

This can also be considered as bundled sales, but even if it is not considered this way, the price of Angolan cotton is still relatively low.

"What if my purchase scale is more than one thousand kilograms? If it reaches two thousand kilograms, or even more, can you give me a discount based on the quantity?" As a businessman, Hull naturally hopes to get more.

However, Maxim couldn't make up his mind about this. He said, "In this case, I can only ask my superiors first. I can help you fight for it, but I don't know how much you need, Mr. Hull, so that I can report to my superiors."

Hull said mysteriously: "The unit must be converted into at least ten thousand catties, but the specific quantity depends on your sincerity."

……

Only under peaceful and stable conditions can East Africa focus on economic development, which is a condition that Germany and Austria do not have.

In fact, apart from Germany, the country that invests the most in East Africa is absolutely unexpected, that is France.

Although France has a certain degree of hatred towards Germans because of Germany, French capital is still relatively pragmatic. Especially after the loss of Lorraine and Alsace, the development of France's domestic industry has been restricted. In addition, due to the strong French financial industry, France's investment in East Africa has continued to increase over the past five years.

Of course, it cannot be ruled out that France felt very happy about teaching the British a lesson in East Africa. Before Germany, the conflict between Britain and France had always been one of the main contradictions on the European continent. This speculation is not entirely unreasonable. After all, before the South African War, France's investment in East Africa was basically zero, and it was only after the South African War that it increased massively.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that there is no actual conflict between East Africa and France. For example, Austria and France had good relations in the past, but now Germany and Austria are closer.

East Africa isolates the southeastern part of the African continent, and France has almost no conflicts of interest or geopolitical significance except for its colonies in Madagascar and Gabon.

Furthermore, East Africa is a large market and source of raw materials. Its industrial and agricultural scale has also grown rapidly in recent years. No country can ignore East Africa.

In fact, the success in East Africa also stimulated the French colonial activities in West Africa and North Africa. Of course, it was impossible to turn its West African colonies into independent countries as it did in East Africa, but West Africa and North Africa were only across the Mediterranean Sea from France, so "integration" could be fully implemented.

However, due to the same reasons in East Africa, France's competitors in West Africa and North Africa increased greatly. Countries like Britain and Germany could only turn to West Africa and North Africa strategically, and even small countries like Belgium could snatch food from their mouths. Today's Belgian colonies are actually part of the territory of the former French colonies of Gabon and Congo (Brazzaville).

France has no good way to deal with Belgium. After all, Belgium is too important to France in Europe. In addition to being a buffer zone with Germany, the local mineral resources are one of the important sources of France's domestic industrial development.

According to statistics from the East African Immigration Office in 1884, the number of permanent French residents in East Africa was second only to Germans, Austro-Hungarians and Arabs, reaching more than . Most of them were engaged in business and trade, and there were a few who invested in and built factories in East Africa. These were only the permanent population.

After all, investing in East Africa carries considerable risks, mainly because the review and supervision in East Africa are relatively strict. Only with the backing of the governments of Germany and Austria do some powerful businessmen and companies dare to invest in East Africa.

As for making quick money from East Africa, it is basically impossible. The financial industry in East Africa is almost non-existent and there is little room for operation. Therefore, many investors in East Africa are truly engaged in real industries.

If you have the spare time, you can set up a shell company in other countries to make a lot of money by cheating people, or use the status of a powerful country to become an "emperor" in a colony or backward country. It will make money faster than investing in East Africa, and you can also experience the pleasure of being superior to others.

In this regard, German companies are naturally more popular in East Africa. In addition to the various friendly relations and close ties between the two countries, the German financial industry started late and has many practical people who do not have as many small ideas as businessmen from other countries, including Austria. After all, the economic crisis of 1873 was triggered by the credibility crisis of the Austrian financial industry.

This also led to the fact that although East Africa cooperated with Austria early, the scale of trade exchanges between East Africa and Germany caught up later. This became more prominent after several ports on the west coast were opened.

In the past, a large part of the trade between East and Germany had to transit through the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but after the opening of the west coast ports, merchant ships of the two countries could travel directly through the Atlantic Ocean without having to go through the Mediterranean.

Of course, in addition to German capital, East Africa is still welcoming to companies and businessmen from other countries willing to invest in the coastal areas of East Africa, even the British and Portuguese.

In fact, East Africa does not have much hatred towards Portugal. Portugal is simply guilty of possessing a treasure, so East Africa has targeted it. Although some conflicts were indeed initiated by Portugal, East Africa was also actively instigating it behind the scenes.

This is just like in the past when Europe and the United States continued to expand their sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, thereby forcing Russia to jump up and down. East Africa actually also adopted this tactic against Portugal.

East Africa purposefully encircled Portugal and finally divided and surrounded the two Portuguese colonies. In this case, how could Portugal not be anxious? And the Portuguese government's idea was completely correct.

East Africa's goal was to realize the ultimate ambition of annexing Portugal's two colonies. Even if Portugal did not fight back, the final outcome would not have changed. The South African War only accelerated the process.

Of course, before the war, East Africa was naturally full of hostility towards Portugal, but after the war, East Africa completely changed its face, especially in terms of wooing Portuguese merchants. After all, if the Portuguese left, how could Angola and Mozambique sell the goods that were originally supplied to Portugal?

So to this day, East Africa is criticized in Portugal, but Portuguese merchants are still one of the important buyers of East African products.

After all, Portuguese merchants have been operating along the coast of East Africa for hundreds of years. It is obviously not cost-effective to simply abandon these business channels. Although doing business with East Africa is disadvantageous, it is also profitable. If they give up directly, they will be unemployed.

(End of this chapter)