African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 997 Industrial Foundation
Of course, the prerequisite is that the Ottoman Empire joins the German side as in the previous life. In this way, in addition to the Suez Canal, East Africa can directly use the Persian Gulf and then transport supplies to Germany and Austria-Hungary through the Baghdad Railway.

After all, the Suez Canal is under British control, which carries certain risks. However, even so, East Africa has greater advantages than the United States because the United States only has one Atlantic route to choose from, while East Africa has three trade routes. More extremely, East Africa can open up a land trade route from the Sahara to the Mediterranean coast, but it is too difficult and does not have a cost advantage.

Of course, the premise of all this is that history develops according to its original trajectory, East Africa's industry develops, and there is a strong navy to guarantee East Africa's economic interests.

In the past, the basic guarantee for the United States to win both ends of the war was its relatively strong naval power. Otherwise, the British and French navies were fully capable of cutting off trade between the United States and its allies.

You should know that after the end of World War I, the total tonnage of the US Navy was close to half of that of the British Navy, with a total tonnage of nearly 500,000 tons. In the early and middle stages of World War I, the United States maintained its status as a neutral country and did not participate in the war. Therefore, in World War I, the fundamental guarantee for the United States to win both ends was its strong naval strength.

This is of great reference value to Ernst, so before the full-scale war in Europe comes, the strength of the East African army should be greatly expanded and improved.

However, this did not interfere with the economic development policy of East Africa during the First Five-Year Plan. East Africa's First Five-Year Plan was completely different from that of the Soviet Union in the past. The primary goal of the Soviet Union's First and Second Five-Year Plans was to develop national defense industry and heavy industry.

The First Five-Year Plan of East Africa was relatively balanced, with heavy industry as the main focus, but at the same time it vigorously developed light industry and agriculture. Although it was biased towards heavy industry, light industry and agriculture also occupied a certain proportion, unlike the first two five-year plans of the Soviet Union which were top-heavy.

The reason for this situation lies in the differences in national conditions and geopolitics between the two countries. The Soviet Union is facing a serious external crisis, and because of the harsh geopolitical environment, it is at risk of joint armed intervention by European countries at any time.

This forced the Soviet Union to solve the problem of natural security first, and this forced choice also laid the hidden danger for the subsequent imbalance of the Soviet Union's industrial structure. Therefore, the Soviet Union's economic development path was very difficult, and various crises also led to the Soviet Union's inability to cope with the competition from the United States in the bipolar structure.

On the other hand, East Africa is completely different. Its geopolitical location is very safe, and it is not far from the main trade routes between Asia and Europe and has unobstructed sea routes. These are the most basic favorable conditions for the economic development of East Africa.

The reason why East Africa continued to focus on heavy industry in the First Five-Year Plan is related to the current national conditions of East Africa. The industrial level of East Africa is far behind that of European and American countries, which makes the industrial output value of East Africa seriously insufficient.

As the most basic industry, heavy industry can be called the foundation of industrial development. This can be seen from the definition of heavy industry. Heavy industry is the industry that provides the main means of production that provide the material and technological basis for various sectors of the national economy.

Only with heavy industry as a foundation can there be a basis for the rapid development of light industry. Taking the first industrial development as an example, the development of the steel and coal industries is the most important driving force for the development of the British textile industry. Steel provides raw materials for textile machinery manufacturing, while promoting the development of railway and shipbuilding industries, promoting transportation development, and facilitating the export of the British textile industry. Coal is the main source of power for light industries such as the textile industry.

So theoretically speaking, the development of light industry cannot be separated from heavy industry. Light industry without heavy industry is like a rootless duckweed and difficult to maintain.

Therefore, for East Africa, whether it is steel, coal, oil, electricity, chemicals and other basic industries, they are the main goals and trends to promote industrial development during the First Five-Year Plan, especially the two major industries of steel and coal. There is a huge gap between East Africa and the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom. After the completion of the First Five-Year Plan, the strength of these two basic industrial fields in East Africa will be greatly enhanced, especially narrowing the gap with the United Kingdom.

The development of these basic industries can provide raw materials and means of production for the development of light industry and agriculture in East Africa. For East Africa at present, with the development of heavy industry, light industry and agriculture will develop naturally. In short, during the First Five-Year Plan of East Africa, the most important thing is to explode the production capacity of basic industries and provide the most basic raw materials for the economic development of East Africa. These raw materials will be invested in the construction of infrastructure, urban construction, transportation, etc. in East Africa.

So Ernst said to the government officials: "In the construction of the west, we will build a new comprehensive industrial base in East Africa in the west coast provinces to promote the development of local light and heavy industries. This is completely different from our past construction experience."

"In the past, East Africa was inclined towards agricultural development, which was determined by the national conditions at the time. At that time, East Africa lacked funds, technology and talents, so we could only start from the most basic agriculture. Now, we have gathered all the necessary elements for industrial development. This is also the main reason why we shifted our development focus from agriculture to industry in the 1990s."

“Of course, the gap between us and European and American countries is still huge, so at this stage, focusing on the development of basic industries, that is, heavy industries, is the only way for us in East Africa.”

"Only after heavy industry develops can we develop other industries based on it. This is one of the important paths for the current development of the world economy and is actually a feature of German industrial development in the last century."

"In the last century, Germany's industrial development started with steel, coal and railways, and then surpassed Britain and France in many fields to become the world's third largest industrial country. Due to historical reasons, we in East Africa naturally cannot achieve the same level in just a few years."

“This process can only be accelerated through administrative and planning means, and my expectation is that after at least two five-year plans, the overall level of industry in East Africa will at least surpass that of Russia.”

Currently, Russia is known as the fifth largest industrial country in the world, and should be ranked between France and East Africa, while the Austro-Hungarian Empire has naturally come to the seventh place in the world.

Of course, in the recognized ranking of industrial strength of countries around the world (except East African governments), East Africa actually ranks seventh, behind the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The order is the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Austria, and East Africa.

However, according to East Africa's own understanding of its own industry, East Africa's industrial strength and scale should actually have surpassed France, but the overall industrial output value of East Africa is relatively low, and one of the important reasons for this is the large proportion of heavy industry.

If the output value factor is excluded, the ranking of industrial scale of various countries is the United States, Germany, Britain, Russia, East Africa, France, Austria, and Russia ranks fourth in the world, thanks to its large population. In this case, although the industrial level of East Africa is higher than that of Russia, it cannot make up for the gap of tens of millions of people in Russia in a short period of time.

France's industrial output value is higher than that of East Africa, but in the field of basic industries, it is obviously impossible for France to surpass East Africa because France itself lacks raw materials for industrial development among the great powers, which makes France's industrial development funds flow to light industry and high-profit industry.

Therefore, if France and East Africa increase their military strength, East Africa will most likely surpass France, not only in terms of manpower, but also in the field of national defense industry. However, the current development focus of East Africa is not the military industry, so at the current stage, East Africa is inferior to France in terms of the scale and strength of its navy and army.

This is obviously not good news for France, because France has been greatly distracted by Germany and has to maintain a relatively large army, which is bound to have a certain negative impact on its own economy.

(End of this chapter)