African Entrepreneurship Record

As time progressed, the conflict between Japan and Russia became increasingly sharp, and concurrently, numerous industrial projects within East Africa under the First Five-Year Plan were completed and put into production.

The First Five-Year Plan was a crucial national policy for the rapid growth of East Africa’s industrialization in a short period, which also led to a significant increase in the output of East African industrial products starting in 1903.

”Since 1901, East Africa’s industrialization process has accelerated continuously, and a large number of industrial products have been domestically produced. Once these products are manufactured, they inevitably face an unavoidable issue: who will buy these products?”

”Since the 1890s, the country has been creating a national large market. However, relying solely on the domestic market to ensure East African industrial production, although feasible, also has significant negative effects, thereby creating distribution conflicts. These conflicts cannot be eliminated in a short time.”

”Therefore, our country must rely on foreign markets to alleviate the instability in the domestic supply and demand relationship. Even during the initial stage of industrialization, the rapid production of a large number of industrial products will lead to a supply greater than demand situation. By exporting goods, this can alleviate the inconsistencies in distribution issues to a certain extent.”

Why were the Soviet Union’s first two Five-Year Plans able to develop vigorously? Besides the excellent situation of the global economic crisis at the time, the most important was the creation of a huge consumer market through redistribution means, allowing the Soviet industrial system to establish, enabling domestic industrial development to achieve a positive cycle.

East Africa was similar to the United States, both creating a massive domestic market demand through colonial means. The immigrant groups were truly without property, not having material wealth and without jobs or income. However, through plundering, they obtained native lands and created value based on that.

Thus, the large domestic market mentioned by Sivert is currently the fundamental guarantee for East Africa’s industrial construction. East Africa is transitioning from an agricultural to an industrial country. Agriculture is still the main part of East Africa’s economy, and the consumption capacity of East African farmers is above the world average line.

The most typical is the textile industry-led light industry of East Africa. In the past, most light industrial products were almost entirely consumed by the domestic agricultural population, with only a few as basic industrial products being exported to developed countries like Germany for further industrial production.

Sivert mentioned: ”With the construction of the textile industry in the west, the expansion of textile industries in various regions, technological advances, and improved mechanical efficiency, our textile industry has made tremendous progress.”

”East Africa does not lack basic materials needed for textile production like cotton, hemp, silk, and wool. In the past, East Africa’s cotton planting area has been continuously expanding from the north to the south, from the east to the west. A large number of cotton fields have been constructed and put into production, with a variety of types, and the output of long-staple cotton is second only to Egypt.”

”At the same time, East Africa is one of the world’s few large hemp-growing countries. Ramie, jute, sisal, and other kinds of hemp are widely planted in East Africa and have formed a considerable scale, with the sisal output being world-leading.”

”The scale of raw silk production is relatively small, but with East Africa’s climatic environment and past national policy support and guidance, our raw silk production is now second only to Asian countries.”

”In the wool industry, the main raw material is wool, and a scale is rapidly forming in our southern region, which can basically meet domestic market demand in the future.”

”Our country’s fertility rate has remained high for these years, providing ample labor force required for various industries.”

”Coupled with the support and construction of the First Five-Year Plan for light industry, our textile industry development is changing rapidly, but this also presents higher demands on the market. In terms of the textile industry domestic market, East Africa does not have as strong an advantage as other major countries.”

This is very understandable, as other major countries in the world are primarily located in temperate zones, characterized by distinct four seasons. This results in naturally higher demand for clothing than in East Africa, with corresponding attire for nearly every season, and the need for textiles in winter is greater due to warmth-keeping requirements.

This can also be seen in the construction of European royal palaces, where many countries have separate winter and summer palaces, as it was with Russia, the Austria-Hungary Empire, and during the time of the original French Empire. However, East African palaces cannot be constructed based on rainy and dry seasons.

East Africa, as a tropical country, has minimal seasonal changes, focusing primarily on variations in precipitation rather than temperature differences. In this situation, simple clothing can meet the daily needs of East Africans.

This aspect in the field of East African textiles is evidently an unfavorable message: on one hand, there is ample raw material, and on the other hand, there is little demand, which means the expansion of the East African textile industry must inevitably solve the market problem.

Sivert stated: ”Thus, our textile industry has already passed the stage of just satisfying the domestic market. As the textile industry develops further in the future, it must move more towards the international market.”

”However, weak competitiveness in the international market has always been the shortcoming of East Africa’s light industry, represented by the textile industry. Although our light industry has received significant development in recent years and eventually formed a system, it has also missed the valuable window to enter the international market.”

East African light industry development can be considered a weak link in East Africa’s industrial development field. Even during the First Five-Year Plan period, many light industrial products in East Africa only achieved industrialized production.

In brief, light industry encompasses industries closely related to people’s lives, such as food, textiles, furniture, papermaking, printing, daily chemical industry, stationery, cultural products, and sporting goods industry.

It can be stated bluntly that basic items like pots and pans have experienced a long process from nothing in East Africa.

In the early days, East African light industrial products were mainly reliant on imports and handicraft forms to barely meet needs. For example, bricks, the most common products, began primarily through inheriting Zanzibar Sultanate’s brick kilns in early production.

Even now, there remains a significant demand gap for light industrial products in East Africa. On one hand, productivity continues to exist in its traditional handicraft form with weak technology and low output. On the other hand, East Africa’s rapidly increasing population means that the demand for light industrial products is constantly rising.

Moreover, this traditional handicraft still displays some tenacious vitality in East Africa, which is also one major reason why East Africa is not yet considered an industrial country.

Thus, during East Africa’s first thirty years, light industry was quite weak, with many light industries hardly existing, apart from crucial areas like textiles. The demand for light industrial products in the country was mainly met through imports and traditional handicrafts.

Not until the setup of East Africa’s heavy industry system did it begin to drive light industry development, realizing a large-scale production of most light industrial products.

However, serious problems such as small scale, scattered production, and poor technology continue to exist. Therefore, during the First Five-Year Plan period, East Africa particularly focused on addressing the weak development of light industry by investing in the construction of a batch of modern light industry factories.

Among these, the cotton textile industry took the largest share, especially in the western Angola region, which has become a new cotton textile production base.

The food industry in East Africa, however, belongs to the advantage segment of the light industry. Relying on East Africa’s rich resources and huge market demand, its development started relatively early. Particularly in the northeast and northern areas, it is quite developed, capable of competing with Europe and America.

Yet under the overall national context where East Africa focuses on investing in heavy industry, light industry faces a severe imbalance or shortage issue, which cannot be rapidly addressed in the short term.

Furthermore, while East Africa’s light industry is generally insufficient, specific areas are facing a market shortage problem, making this contradiction increasingly prominent in East Africa.

Thus, finding markets for East African light industry and continuing to upgrade and transform the light industry sector must occur simultaneously.

The task of the East African government is to guide and transform domestic handicrafts toward light industry while seeking numerous international markets to inject momentum into the development of East Africa’s already emerging light industry.