African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 996 Western Population Expectations
The focus of the First Five-Year Plan was on western development. Starting in 1900, East Africa's investment in western towns, mines and agriculture increased significantly. In particular, cities such as Cabinda, Luanda, Benguela, Kinshasa and Bangui received much higher actual policies than the Dar es Salaam metropolitan area, which was much ado about nothing, or the Greater Mombasa plan, which was self-raised by the Oriental Province.

"During the First Five-Year Plan, more than 200 new towns will be built in the west, especially in the vacuum areas between the coast and the central region, namely Kasai Province, Lunda Province, Okavango Province and other areas, and a large number of people will be introduced to settle and work there."

"At the same time, the population size of important cities such as Cabinda and Luanda will be supplemented. During the First Five-Year Plan, at least two new cities with a population of over 500,000 will be built in the west to balance the cities of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa in the east."

Needless to say, these two cities must be Luanda and Cabinda. Cabinda corresponds to Mombasa, and Luanda corresponds to Dar es Salaam.

The development of the New West in East Africa can be compared to the development of the West Coast by the United States, or the development of the Far East by Russia. Of course, the natural conditions in western East Africa are superior to those in the western United States, and although Russia invested heavily in the development and construction of its Far Eastern empire, it was actually difficult to achieve results.

"In the past decade, we have renovated and rebuilt the industries and infrastructure in Angola based on the original Angolan colony. Thanks to the efforts of millions of black workers and more than four million East Africans, Angola's overall transportation and water conservancy have been fully improved. In contrast, the local population is unevenly distributed, especially in the central and eastern parts, where the population is too sparse and the situation of vast land and sparse population is very serious."

A population of four million (excluding blacks) is even lower than that of Siberia in Russia. In the last Russian census in 1897, the total population of Siberia in Russia was more than five million, close to six million.

Ernst said: "During the First Five-Year Plan, the total population of Angola must exceed 10 million, so that it can take on the important task of becoming a new pillar of national economic construction."

"We should rationally utilize the sea and land advantages of the western region, focus on developing industries such as equipment manufacturing and the power industry, especially promote urbanization, transform the agricultural population in eastern East Africa into urban population, and promote the urbanization progress of East Africa."

There is no doubt that the focus of the East African government has now completely shifted to the stage of industrialization construction, so East Africa does not pay much attention to improving western agriculture.

Because during this period, even the more developed central and eastern regions of East Africa were actively carrying out the work of de-agriculturalizing the population.

Therefore, the construction in Angola is very different from the past immigration and development process in East Africa. In the past, East Africa was agriculture first and then industry, but now agricultural production activities in East Africa have reached their peak.

Of course, de-population in agriculture does not mean that agriculture should not be developed, but rather that labor-intensive agriculture should no longer be developed. Instead, mechanized agriculture should be promoted, thereby reducing the demand for agricultural population.

Although agricultural construction has a positive impact on East Africa's population growth, East Africa cannot sustain the trend of continued high-growth population. Today, East Africa's population has exceeded 80 million (excluding blacks), second only to Russia in the world, and is still in a high-growth stage.

If East Africa does not adjust its industrial structure in a timely manner and vigorously develop its industry, it is likely to fall into a vicious cycle in which its economic growth rate is dragged down by its population growth rate.

In fact, the East African governments have already felt the pressure and have significantly increased social spending on health care, education, etc., but agricultural production activities cannot support these expenses because agricultural profits are far less than industrial profits. Even if East African agricultural sales are unimpeded, profits will only continue to decline.

On the one hand, the development of their own countries or their colonies by countries around the world has led to a continuous increase in the output and variety of grain, dairy products, and cash crops, further intensifying competition in world agriculture.

A typical example is the sharp rise in the prices of dairy and livestock products in Argentina, which is bound to have an impact on the dairy and livestock markets in other countries and regions. Argentina has a vast territory and a sparse population, favorable climatic conditions, and low shipping costs. Its exported dairy and livestock products are of high quality and low price. At least the livestock industry in East Africa is difficult to compete with Argentina overseas. The advantage of East African agriculture lies in tropical cash crops. In this field, East Africa is undoubtedly the world's number one in comprehensive strength, but Brazil, India, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean are also developing, and the technical threshold is not high, so they are also facing greater competitive pressure.

If the population of East Africa was only 20 to 30 million, or 40 to 50 million, and remained stable at this number, then agricultural profits would still be promising. However, the population of East Africa is second only to Europe, America and Asia even in the world. With the rapid population growth and the continued decline in agricultural profits, developing industry is currently the only way out for East Africa.

This is easy to understand. Among countries with similar area and population, the only ones that East Africa can refer to are the United States and Tsarist Russia. Although the population data of countries such as Britain, France, and Germany are not bad, their areas are too small to be of reference value.

There is no doubt that Tsarist Russia was a country where agriculture outweighed industry, while the United States was already a relatively industrially developed country. The future situations of the two countries in the past were also very clear, that is, the domestic crisis in Tsarist Russia would become increasingly serious, and eventually the regime would change, and the United States would take over world hegemony.

Although the Soviet Union later emerged and led the former Russian region to become a world hegemony, the gap between the Soviet Union and the United States had already widened by then. The gap between the two countries was at least forty to fifty years. Even though the Soviet economy grew rapidly under the Soviet model, it was difficult to narrow the gap.

The most representative data is the urbanization rate of the two countries. By the 20s, the Soviet Union's urbanization level had barely reached %, while other developed countries were generally above %.

Therefore, it was very important for East Africa to seize the window of economic development in the early 20th century, including taking advantage of opportunities such as economic crises and wars.

During the previous world war, the original production activities of European countries were completely turned to the military industry, and they were thrown into the bottomless pit of war. It should be noted that before the war, Europe was the most industrially developed region in the world, and Europe's civilian industrial production activities stagnated due to the war, and the world market share given up was also the largest.

In the past, these world's largest markets that were given up due to war were almost swallowed up by the United States alone, and the impact on the improvement of American industry and society is immeasurable.

The world war is undoubtedly also a huge opportunity for East Africa, but in order to seize this opportunity, East Africa must first build its own industrial base. Only in this case can it make a fortune from the war.

Therefore, in the first decade of the 20th century, Ernst devoted all his efforts to the industrial construction of East Africa. Only countries with developed industries and located outside the European region could enjoy the dividends of the war economy more comfortably.

This brings us to the Far Eastern Empire. In the past, the Far Eastern Empire's economy actually enjoyed the dividends of World War I. During this period, national capitalism achieved leapfrog growth, or a chance to breathe, but because of its weak industrial base, the war dividends it reaped were not even as good as those of Japan.

After all, Europe's demand for all kinds of materials is almost unlimited due to the war, and only industrial countries outside Europe can reap the lion's share of the war dividends.

In the previous world, there were only two developed industrial countries outside of Europe, namely the United States and Japan. But in this time and space, due to the rise of East Africa, there should be three. The industrial level of East Africa may be lower than that of European and American countries, but its strength is far above that of Japan. And because of its geographical location, East Africa is easier to have the best of both worlds than the United States. The trade between the United States and Europe is completely dependent on the Atlantic Ocean and will inevitably be restricted by Britain, while East Africa can transport resources to the two major camps through the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean.

(End of this chapter)