African Entrepreneurship Record

The focus of the First Five-Year Plan is Western expansion. From 1900 onwards, East Africa’s investment in Western towns, mines, and agriculture increased significantly. Cities like Cabinda, Luanda, Benguela, Kinshasa, and Bangui received far more actual policies compared to the much-talked-about but less substantive Dar es Salaam City urban circle or the self-funded Great Mombasa Plan of the Eastern Province.

”During the First Five-Year Plan, over 200 new towns will be established in the West, particularly in the vacuum areas between the coast and the central region, which include areas like Kaisai Province, Lunda Province, and Okavango Province. The plan is to introduce a large population to settle and work locally.”

”At the same time, we will supplement the population scale of important cities like Cabinda and Luanda. During the First Five-Year Plan, at least two emerging cities with populations exceeding 500,000 will be built in the West to balance the eastern Dar es Salaam City and Mombasa City.”

It’s clear that these two cities will certainly be Luanda and Cabinda, with Cabinda corresponding to Mombasa City, and Luanda corresponding to Dar es Salaam City.

This Western development of East Africa can be likened to the United States’ development of the West Coast or Russia’s development of the Far East region. Naturally, the natural conditions of East Africa’s west are superior to those of the western United States, while Russia’s investments in the development and construction of the Far East Empire were substantial but hardly effective.

”Over the past decade, based on the former Angolan colony, we’ve revamped and reconstructed the industry and basic infrastructure in the Angola region. Thanks to the efforts of millions of Black laborers and over 4 million East African people, Angola’s overall transportation and water conservancy facilities are now fully improved. However, there remains a stark imbalance in the local population distribution, with the central and eastern regions particularly sparsely populated.”

The population of 4 million (excluding Black people) isn’t even comparable to Russia’s Siberia. In the last Russian census of 1897, Siberia’s total population was over 5 million, nearing 6 million.

Thus Ernst stated, ”During the First Five-Year Plan, the total population of the Angola region must reach at least 10 million to undertake the new pillar role in national economic construction.”

”Rationally utilize the West’s advantages of sea and land, focusing on developing equipment manufacturing and electric power industries. Especially promote urbanization construction, transforming the agricultural population of East Africa’s eastern regions into urban populations, thereby advancing East Africa’s urbanization progress.”

There’s no doubt that the current focus of the East African Government has fully shifted to industrialization construction, hence the little attention paid to improving the western agriculture.

Even during this period, the relatively developed central and eastern regions of East Africa were actively conducting de-agriculturalization.

Therefore, the construction in Angola drastically differs from past East African immigration and development processes. Previously, East Africa always prioritized agriculture before industry, but now East Africa’s agricultural production activities have nearly peaked.

Of course, de-agriculturalization does not mean not developing agriculture; rather, it means no longer developing labor-intensive agriculture. Instead, it is about promoting mechanized agriculture to reduce the demand for agricultural labor.

Although agricultural development has a positive significance for East African population growth, the continuing high-speed population growth trend is unsustainable for East Africa, whose population has now surpassed 80 million (excluding Black people), second only to Russia globally, and it’s still in a high-growth phase.

If the East African industrial structure isn’t adjusted in time for aggressive industrial development, East Africa is likely to fall into a vicious cycle where economic growth is hampered by population growth.

In fact, the East African Government is already feeling the pressure with healthcare, education, and other social spending increasing drastically, while agricultural production activities cannot sustain these expenditures because the profits from agriculture are far lower than those from industry. Even if East African agricultural sales are unimpeded, the returns will inevitably continue to decline.

On one hand, the worldwide development of nations and their colonies has led to continuous growth in the yield and variety of grain, dairy, livestock products, and economic crops, further intensifying competition in global agriculture.

A typical example is Argentina’s significant hike in dairy and livestock products, which will inevitably impact the dairy and livestock markets of other countries and regions. Argentina’s expansive land, sparse population, favorable climate conditions, and low maritime costs make its exported dairy and livestock products of high quality and low price, which at least makes it difficult for East African animal husbandry to compete with Argentina overseas.

East African agriculture’s advantage lies in tropical economic crops, a field where East Africa undoubtedly boasts the world’s comprehensive strength. However, Brazil, India, the Nanyang region, and the Caribbean Sea Region are also developing, and since the technical threshold is not high, East Africa faces considerable competitive pressure.

If the East African population were only 20 to 30 million, or even 40 to 50 million, and stabilized at that number, agricultural profits would still be promising. But East Africa’s population, even globally, is second only to countries in Europe and America and Asia. In the circumstances of rapid population growth and declining agricultural profits, developing industry is East Africa’s only viable path at present.

It’s easy to understand; among similar large countries in terms of area and population, the only references for East Africa are the United States and Tsarist Russia. Countries like the UK, France, and Germany, while having decent population figures, are too small in area to be considered relevant references.

Without a doubt, Tsarist Russia is a nation where agriculture surpasses industry, whereas the United States is already a relatively industrialized nation. The futures of both countries in a previous era were very clear, with Tsarist Russia facing escalating domestic crises, leading to eventual regime change, while the United States assumed world supremacy.

Though later, the Soviet Union emerged out of nowhere, elevating the former Russian region to a world power, by that time the gap between the Soviet Union and the United States was already quite vast, at least 40 to 50 years. Even under the Soviet model, where economic growth was rapid, the gap was difficult to close.

Among the most representative data is the level of urbanization in both countries. By the 1980s, the Soviet urbanization level only reached about 60%, while other developed countries generally stood over 70%.

Therefore, seizing the economic development window of the early 20th century is extremely important for East Africa, including leveraging opportunities like economic crises and wars.

During the World Wars of the previous era, the original production activities of European countries completely shifted to military industry, feeding into the bottomless pit of war. It must be noted that before the wars, Europe was the most industrially developed region in the world. The halt in European civilian industrial activities due to the wars led to the largest left-out share of the world’s market.

For East Africa, the World Wars undoubtedly also represent a tremendous opportunity. But to grasp this opportunity, East Africa must first establish a solid domestic industrial foundation before one can reap substantial war profits.

Thus, in the first decade of the 20th century, Ernst was fully committed to East Africa’s industrial construction. Only a country with advanced industry, yet located outside of Europe, can comfortably enjoy the dividends of the war economy.

This brings up the Far East Empire, which in the previous world also enjoyed the dividends of World War I. During this period, national capitalism achieved leaps in growth, or a chance to catch a breath, yet due to weak domestic industrial foundations, the Far East Empire’s war dividends even fell short compared to Japan.

Since European demand for various materials due to war was nearly limitless, the primary beneficiaries of war dividends were industrial nations outside of Europe.

In the previous world, the United States and Japan were the only developed industrial nations outside of Europe. In this timeline, due to East Africa’s sudden rise, there should be three. While East Africa’s industrial level may lag behind Europe and America, its strength surpasses Japan. Additionally, due to its geographical location, East Africa can more easily reap benefits from both sides, unlike the United States and its complete reliance on trans-Atlantic trade, inevitably subject to restrictions by the United Kingdom. East Africa, however, can transport resources to both major camps via the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.