African Entrepreneurship Record

The emphasis on different data standards leads to different conclusions. However, no matter how you arrange it, East Africa steadily sits in the top five positions. Although Tsarist Russia’s total is higher than East Africa’s, in Ernst’s eyes, in comparison between the two countries, Tsarist Russia is already far inferior to East Africa. Particularly under the trend of East Africa’s rapidly growing population, Tsarist Russia’s population advantage will also be replaced by East Africa.

After all, Tsarist Russia’s population is large, but the territories of Poland, Ukraine, Central Asia, and others are unstable, with numerous ethnic groups and prominent conflicts. These populations might even have a negative effect during wartime.

The millions of ”gray cattle” of Tsarist Russia seem very oppressive, but with East Africa’s current total population, it can also easily form armies of over a million. Moreover, East Africa does not have Tsarist Russia’s harsh geopolitical environment and prominent conflicts, so East Africa can vigorously develop its economy and is confident in achieving a comprehensive surpassing of Tsarist Russia in the next decade.

In fact, in the future, the East African Government’s primary task is to bridge the gap with advanced countries in the fields of science and culture. Once this weakness is remedied, East Africa will almost be in an invincible position.

This isn’t to say that East Africa’s current level of development in science and culture is poor. On the contrary, East Africa is rapidly catching up with European and American countries in these fields.

By the end of the 19th century, breakthroughs in East Africa’s domestic science and technology fields were already impressive. However, for institutional and political reasons, East African talents were not active in the international community, which made it easy to overlook the developments in East African education and science fields.

Many talents are retained by the East African government or research institutions, the most typical being in the fields of electricity and internal combustion engines, where East Africa is among the leaders like the United States and Germany. However, comparatively, East African researchers in these two fields are relatively unknown in the international community.

Of course, undeniably, East Africa still has a significant gap with other great powers in terms of cutting-edge basic theoretical talents. But over time, such talents will emerge with the improvement of East Africa’s higher education quality.

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With the release of population data, the East African leadership has gained a clearer understanding of East Africa’s development. Population represents the market and labor force; understanding population data benefits the government in formulating future development policies.

Subsequently, the national planning commission released East Africa’s industrial data in 1900, and Sivert provided a detailed report.

”As of last year, our steel production has exceeded 3.2 million tons, pig iron production 1.9 million tons, coal production over 30 million tons, achieving a leap in the steel industry, and ranking among the forefront in the world.”

Although there is no specific data from other countries, the East African Government can roughly determine that East Africa’s steel industry is at the forefront of the world, because currently, East Africa’s steel industry has achieved a technological update, with no significant technological gap compared to other world powers.

Indeed, in 1900, East Africa’s steel production was only behind the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, with the UK in third, producing nearly 5 million tons, while East Africa was fourth, and Tsarist Russia fifth, with only over 2 million tons.

The development of East Africa’s steel industry is inseparable from the leap in transportation and other infrastructure construction, as transportation construction itself has a huge demand for basic raw materials like steel, and transportation development also provides conditions for the integration of the steel industry.

For example, the construction of the Apington railway allowed iron ore from the southwest of East Africa to become a new source of raw materials for Bulawayo’s steel plant, further increasing Bulawayo’s steel output.

”In 1900, our total railway mileage reached 90,000 kilometers, making it the third largest railway network in the world, second only to Europe and America.”

This data exceeded the planning commission’s expectations, but did not reach the Ministry of Railways’ target of 100,000 kilometers. However, it still reflects the rapid progress in East Africa’s railway construction.

In the railway sector, if it were a single European country, it naturally couldn’t compare with East Africa, but with East Africa’s land area of over 13 million square kilometers, almost adding up to the size of India more than entire Europe, East Africa, although possessing the second-largest railway network in the world, still lacks in density.

Compared with Europe, America’s railway construction ranks first in the world, with both the United States and Canada holding significant mileage, the United States being the country with the largest railway mileage in the world, totaling 300,000 kilometers. A single country like the United States alone can almost match the entire, and America still includes countries like Canada and Mexico, with Canada reaching nearly 30,000 kilometers, not lagging behind European countries at all.

Also, the U.S. railway is still in a rapid development stage, and until the opening of the Panama Canal and automobile popularization, railways will still be the primary means of transporting goods between the east and west coasts of the United States.

Therefore, it’s unlikely for East Africa to surpass the U.S. in railway mileage, and Ernst doesn’t have this idea, but it doesn’t change the fact that East Africa’s total railway mileage has already ranked second in the world, whereas landmass first-ranked Tsarist Russia has only about 50,000 kilometers.

The development of East Africa’s railways is an important factor driving the expansion of the steel industry, as well as shipbuilding, highways, bridges, and other transportation developments that have significantly propelled the development of the country’s high-speed rail industry.

”The textile industry has also seen huge development. Compared to 1890, our textile production has nearly doubled, also ranking in the forefront of the world. It has become the world’s second-largest cotton producer, providing basic raw materials for the development of our textile industry and exporting heavily to Europe and other regions.”

East Africa’s development of the textile industry has a natural advantage, as most regions of East Africa are suitable for cotton planting, including Jisan City in the Congo Basin, which are some of the vital centers for the cotton textile industry. After the South African war, East Africa also took over a large number of cotton plantations from the Portuguese.

However, apart from meeting domestic needs, East Africa’s cotton mainly exports to markets in Germany and other Central and Eastern European countries, with Germany’s cotton textile industry developing rapidly. Germany is not a major cotton-producing area, so East Africa has become Germany’s main cotton supplier, almost meeting all of Germany’s cotton requirements in terms of both quality and quantity.

”Our country still leads in emerging industries such as electricity and automobiles, petroleum, with most of our major export products coming from these emerging industries. Additionally, in 1889, a new round of oil and gas exploration was launched to ensure security in our energy sector.”

Undoubtedly, East Africa’s currently fast-developing automotive, petroleum, chemical, and other industries all require petroleum as a basic guarantee. Therefore, under Ernst’s directive, the East African Government has already begun a new round of energy exploration work.

The previous-life Uganda’s Albert Lake (referred to as Constantine Lake in East Africa) Basin is the focus of this oil exploration, with enough oil resources to support East Africa’s needs for the next fifty years.

Of course, the oil resources in the Nile River Basin in the north of East Africa and near Cabinda, Ernst temporarily does not want to initiate, as these two regions are in border areas and are more likely to cause disputes.

As for the oil near the Albert Lake Basin, there is no such concern. It is located in the core territory of East Africa’s Great Lakes Region, very secure.

”...By the end of 1900, the number of enterprises above a designated size in our country has reached more than 3,000, and these enterprises account for over 65% of our country’s total economic output, forming East Africa’s overall economic landscape along with other enterprises, including local small and micro enterprises, joint ventures, and so on.”