African Entrepreneurship Record

Economic colonialism of the Abyssinia Empire is an important step in establishing the East African economic circle, as it is currently the only neighboring country to East Africa with a considerable economic size and independence.

In contrast to other regions, apart from the British Cape Town and the Italian Red Sea Colony, there are no areas with a population exceeding one million.

Cape Town has a long development history, evolving over hundreds of years from the Dutch to the British, and after the end of the South African War, a large number of Boer people returned to the Cape Town Colony, further boosting its population.

The initial formation of the Red Sea colony is a result of population overflow from the Apennine Peninsula, and following Germany, Italy has become a mainstream group for European immigrants. In previous years, Mozambique and Angola in East Africa had absorbed many Italian immigrants.

This enabled the Italian immigrant group in East Africa to swiftly catch up with the Slavic immigrant group, although Slavic immigrants within East Africa primarily originate from various regions in the south of the Austria-Hungary Empire, having already been significantly influenced by Germanization, while Slavic immigrants from Tsarist Russia are relatively few in number.

The situation with countries surrounding East Africa, except for the Abyssinia Empire, is that they are all colonies, which is the supposed state of the African continent. Unique independent countries like East Africa are truly peculiar.

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First Town.

”Since 1873, a large number of production equipment has been imported from Germany and other places, achieving a leap-forward development in our country’s industry. However, nearly twenty years have passed, and many of the equipment is outdated. East Africa’s overall industrial technology and equipment require upgrading, especially in emerging industrial fields.”

East Africa has long aimed to upgrade its industrial system, as most of the imported equipment came from the seventies, but some equipment is actually even older.

Ernst continued: ”Currently, outdated industrial equipment is mainly concentrated in the central and eastern inland regions, so this technological equipment upgrade should prioritize starting from the inland areas, and it should primarily adopt East Africa’s autonomous new technologies and new equipment.”

”Of course, outdated equipment shouldn’t be immediately discarded; they should be relocated to the western and northern parts to achieve further healthy development of our country’s overall industrial strength.”

In the seventies, East Africa’s territory was still primarily in the east, so the industry was mainly set up in the eastern region, and as East Africa developed the central region in the eighties, a large amount of backward production capacity transferred to the central region, promoting the rise of heavy industry bases in the center.

In the mid to late eighties, as East Africa’s education, economy, and research capabilities improved, East Africa prioritized deploying several key industrial sectors in the central area, including electricity, automobiles, and railways, barely realizing parity in industrial levels between the central and eastern regions.

However, compared to the eastern coastal area, the overall strength of the inland regions of East Africa is still relatively weak, since the current world’s technological center is in Europe, making it easier for the eastern coast to connect to the world market.

Therefore, cities like Dar es Salaam City, Mombasa City, and other coastal cities can stand out among the various East African cities, especially under the East African Government’s preferential policies, which favor the inland regions.

”Our inland regions currently have a good level of development, and can now compete with the eastern coastal areas. However, apart from the central and eastern areas, other regions in the country are seriously lagging behind in economic development, particularly the northern regions that were incorporated into our territory earlier.”

”Now, with deeper economic cooperation between East Africa and the Abyssinia Empire, we should deploy a batch of industries around the Abyssinia Empire to reduce production costs, while also achieving further industrial optimization.”

Although East Africa has many backward industries, these industries are relatively advanced when placed in backward areas, especially in remote areas of East Africa.

The northern region of East Africa is not a small place; it primarily includes the Azande Plateau, the upstream basin of the Nile River, the Ethiopian Highlands, the plains along the shores of Lake Turkana, and the Somali Plains, with an overall population size exceeding ten million.

Although far different from the central and eastern regions, nationally speaking, it temporarily has an advantage over the southern and western regions, so the focus of this backward industries transfer is the northern region.

Establishing these backward industries in the northern region also has another consideration, which is proximity to regional markets. In land-based economy, East Africa itself occupies the central and southern African continent except for Cape Town, so land-based external economy is primarily tied to the northwest’s West Africa and the North Africa across the Sahara Desert.

These old equipments introduced in the seventies can continue to shine after being migrated to the northern area, completing their last retirement tasks, until they are finally phased out.

Moreover, now migrating equipment to the northern area is much easier than during the seventies and eighties. With the construction and popularization of railways and highways in East Africa, East Africa’s current transportation conditions are significantly better than they were over a decade ago.

Previously, industrial equipment was moved inland during the migration period using human and animal power, making the difficulty far greater than it is now.

”The northern region, especially the northwest area, is our country’s bridgehead connecting to West Africa. With the development of the Sigmaringen royal territory, Belgian Congo, and German Cameroon, the northwest area will be an important link in East Africa’s foreign trade in the future.”

”The central and eastern areas should further optimize industries, especially continue efforts in railways, steel, electricity, automobiles, and equipment manufacturing fields to expand emerging industry advantages and improve the production efficiency of traditional industries. In the traditional industrial field, the future goal for East Africa’s central and eastern regions is to catch up with European and American countries.”

As for the west, East Africa’s positioning for the western area, especially the coastal regions like Luanda, Cabinda, and Benguela, is relatively high, targeting Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. Therefore, besides developing traditional industries, there will also be a focus on developing emerging industries.

Using the same development strategy as before in the central area, after all, the eastern coastal areas of East Africa are anchored to the Asia-Europe market, while the inland areas are anchored to the national market, and the future western regions are anchored to Europe and America (primarily Latin America) markets.

Countries like Argentina and Brazil have decent purchasing power and should not be overlooked as important markets. Especially in the current Argentina, which exports large amounts of agricultural products to Europe, the living standards of its population are catching up with developed countries and regions. East Africa’s western shipping routes directly connect to South America, hence there is a geographical advantage.

Moreover, Latin America is rich in natural resources, making it convenient for East Africa’s western coastal cities to procure raw materials, and the west itself is not lacking in resource endowment.

In the previous existence, Angola was one of Africa’s resource-rich countries, especially rich in petroleum resources, and being right next to East Africa’s central industrial zone, it meets all requirements for industrial development.

With the construction of two main railway lines, the future will inevitably link the central and eastern areas, becoming major industrial distribution zones in East Africa.

Thus, East Africa places far more importance on the west, especially Angola, compared to the north. After all, backward industries are just the leftover soup from East Africa’s central and eastern regions, while the northern areas can only feed on these remnants, and East Africa’s plan for Angola certainly isn’t that.

Besides the regions mentioned above, the southern area lacks detailed planning. East Africa’s development of the southern region is not active, partly because the south only includes the British Cape Town Colony, where relations are poor, leading to infrequent trade exchanges and acting as a buffer zone.

Although East Africa’s north also borders the United Kingdom, Egypt and the Sudan Region have extremely poor transportation conditions, and British Somaliland is too small in size to pose a threat to East Africa.