African Entrepreneurship Record

And the trade between Abyssinia and East Africa, throughout the entire year of 1882, has become the sixth-largest trade nation for East Africa, only following Oman, so East Africa places a comparatively high importance on the Abyssinian Empire.

Currently, the top trade partners of East Africa before the Abyssinian Empire are the Far East Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany, Tsarist Russia, and Oman.

Oman’s prominence is mainly due to the presence of Zanzibar merchants as intermediaries, with many goods sold to the Arab region being distributed in Oman, extending influence to the Middle East, Central Asia, and even parts of Southeast Asia.

And the trade between the Abyssinian Empire and East Africa has also caused the entire Turkana Province’s border trade to surpass the Southern Border Province, currently only behind the Central Province and the Eastern Province.

The Southern Border Province has New Hamburg Port City as its outlet, the Central Province has the trade ports of Dar es Salaam, Bajamojo, and Tanga, and the Eastern Province has Mombasa City.

So the foreign trade volume of the Central and Eastern Provinces is hard for other provinces to surpass, especially the Central Province with its three main trade ports.

And New Hamburg Port City of the Southern Border Province has an economic hinterland including the Southern Border Province (Zulu Kingdom), Heixinggen Province (Transvaal Republic), Lorraine Province (Kalahari Basin), New Baden Province (Bechuanaland), and parts of Matebel Province.

Therefore, Turkana Province surpassing New Hamburg Port City purely through trade with the Abyssinian Empire is indeed a remarkable achievement.

The only pity is that the trading locations between Turkana Province and the Abyssinian Empire, namely the border trade cities, are not unique like New Hamburg Port or Mombasa.

In fact, Dar es Salaam surpasses both, but the Central Province also has Bajamojo and Tanga sharing the load, though Bajamojo and Tanga are very small compared to Dar es Salaam.

Dar es Salaam’s influence extends well beyond a single Central Province; it handles foreign trade for more than a dozen provinces, while Mombasa monopolizes foreign trade for the Northern Industrial Belt, Northern Pasturelands, Great Lakes Region, and Northwestern areas.

Dar es Salaam, Mombasa, and New Hamburg Port City all have vast economic hinterlands and railway transportation, so development is naturally not slow.

In this comparison, Turkana Province, being neither coastal nor supported by railways for economic development, with neither a predominant population nor industry, yet developing into the third-largest foreign trade province of East Africa, surpassing the Southern Border Province, clearly shows Turkana Province’s efforts.

Of course, the roles of the Abyssinian Empire and the Italian Red Sea coastal colonies, as well as Egypt, cannot be ignored, especially since the empire contributes over forty percent to Turkana Province’s economy.

Besides the surprising trade of Turkana Province, East Africa’s import and export trade with the Far East Empire is also a major highlight, surpassing Germany and Austria-Hungary to become East Africa’s largest trading partner.

The time when the Far East Empire became the largest trading nation for East Africa was in 1881; previously, the largest trading nation had been the Austro-Hungarian Empire for a long period, and between 1874 and 1878 it was Germany.

The years 1874 to 1878 were when the economic crisis was at its worst, and during that time, East Africa’s steel trade with Germany alone reached its peak; after the economic crisis, the Austro-Hungarian Empire returned to the top but was formally surpassed by the Far East Empire after just two years.

This is understandable, as the Far East Empire’s economic size is extremely large, with even its northern market being enough for East Africa to absorb, not to mention the southern market where East Africa could not penetrate.

Moreover, the precondition for East Africa gaining access to the northern market of the Far East Empire was cooperation with the two major northern commercial groups of the Far East Empire, through trade exchanges and other means, unlike the trade freedom that the British had in the Far East Empire.

East Africa imports mostly agricultural products, handicrafts, and textiles from the Far East Empire every year, whereas the Far East Empire imports food, industrial products, electrical appliances, and tropical specialties from East Africa.

The industrial products from East Africa can only follow a cost-based route, being solidly made and relatively standardized, offering a high cost-performance ratio, but the profits are not ideal.

Electrical appliances are considered one of the few flagship products from East Africa, being a strong export item, which is why they are separately categorized.

This can be seen not only in foreign trade but also in the electricity dissemination across countries, where East Africa’s electricity industry development is evident, with the electricity dissemination second only to the German region and the United States, but with a growth rate surpassing both.

An important reason for this is East Africa’s large size, where Germany and Austria-Hungary combined cover only over a million square kilometers, so there is a limit compared to East Africa and the United States.

However, the United States also has its problems, with many electric companies and a lower degree of standardization than East Africa, with standards being rather chaotic and incompatible among the companies, which is not conducive to the unification and promotion of the electricity market.

Of course, there are benefits, such as the ease of forming competition, which is only second to the German region in terms of innovation.

East Africa currently lacks innovation in the electricity industry, but the government’s unified procurement standards standardize East Africa’s electricity market, promoting compatibility of electricity industry standards nationally, which aids in the dissemination and promotion of the electricity industry, making East Africa one of the fastest-growing countries in the world for the electricity industry.

As for innovation and competition, they mostly occur in the German region; Heixinggen Electric Company is simultaneously investing in East Africa and the German region, ensuring the East African electricity industry does not rely solely on one approach.

Also, after the 1873 economic crisis, monopoly organizations rose, and the same happened in the electricity industry, so the previous disadvantage of East Africa’s electricity industry became an advantage, allowing competition with the electric giants of Europe and America, ensuring the advantage of East Africa’s electricity industry.

Moreover, East Africa has the world’s first electrical university, while it was only this year that Germany’s Technical University of Darmstadt introduced Europe’s first electrical engineering course, so East Africa’s layout for the electricity industry was far ahead of Western countries.

Before 1880, the industries East Africa focused on promoting were steel and railroads; after 1880, it shifted to electricity and automobiles, ensuring East Africa would not lag behind other regions of the world in these two fields, and securing the future economic potential of East Africa.

Of course, the steel and railroad industries in East Africa are still in a growth phase and have been for a long time, and both industries provide a foundation for the development of the electricity and automobile industries, driving the development of the upstream and downstream industrial chains.

For instance, the copper and rubber needed by the electricity industry must be extracted from inland regions via railroads, and railroad construction is established on the explosive growth of the steel industry.

In 1882, the seventh-largest trade nation for East Africa was India, primarily importing, with main imports being coal, iron, and other mineral resources, including unique resources like jute, which were important factors in promoting trade between East Africa and East India due to industrial development in East Africa and steel industry development in the eastern coastal area.

The East Indian trade broke the British economic blockade on East Africa, successfully reintegrating East Africa into the economic system of the British Empire and promoting East African industrial development.