African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1209: Chapter 218: Dar es Salaam City Aluminum Refinery

This kind of environmental engineering was most often done during the era of a fully planned economy in East Africa. Many cities in East Africa have similar sewage treatment plants, as a key feature of the planned economy era was not considering costs.

Of course, not considering costs doesn’t mean they don’t exist; it’s just that these costs are not directly in the form of money. Labor, materials, and other investments are allocated through administrative means.

Labor costs in East Africa have always been low. Initially, there were Black slaves to fall back on, and later, with the population boom in East Africa, labor prices were not considered too high. Materials are even less of a concern, as resources like land and minerals were controlled by the East African government.

However, it is clear that this model is unsustainable. Even Black slaves, who were exploited like cattle by the East African government, inevitably took the path of resistance. Moreover, the current number of Black slaves in East Africa is entirely insufficient to support the societal development.

”Dar es Salaam City has a total of three sewage treatment plants. Surrounding these plants are industries that cause significant pollution, such as aluminum refineries, textile mills, and chemical plants.”

”With the changing times, the demand for aluminum products is also increasing. Electricity, automobiles, kitchenware, and so on have made this metal, which was still considered precious last century, fully enter the stage of large-scale industrial production.”

In fact, aluminum’s impact on the development of the aviation industry is also quite significant. However, presently, the East African aircraft manufacturing industry is still in the nascent stage, so the impact on the total quantity is not too large, and the general public can’t access it.

Take last year’s East African civil aviation industry, for instance. The annual passenger flow was less than three hundred people, many of whom were experimental flights. Conversely, the military demand was larger.

In this situation, the number of people flying each year is counted in the hundreds. For East Africa, which has a population exceeding hundreds of millions, it’s like a drop in the bucket, so it’s quite normal for Pasteur not to be too aware.

However, what Pasteur said was not comprehensive and somewhat understated, yet it was enough to excite Howard.

He exclaimed, ”I’ve heard that East Africa is the world’s largest aluminum producer, but I’ve never had a real concept of it. Could you take me to visit the aluminum refinery in Dar es Salaam City?”

Pasteur said with some difficulty, ”If it’s just to take you around the outskirts, that wouldn’t be much of a problem. But if you want to enter the factory, I don’t have that kind of authority.”

Howard replied, ”I certainly wouldn’t want to put you in a difficult position. I’m just curious about the aluminum refinery because I’ve only heard of it before and have never seen it. Being able to see it from the outside would satisfy me.”

Since Howard said so, Pasteur had no objections. He opened the car door for Howard, and once Howard boarded, he drove towards the aluminum refinery in Dar es Salaam City.

Howard looked enviously at Pasteur’s car. This vehicle is considered a mid-to-high-end product in East Africa. Pasteur, despite being a somewhat influential East African businessman, could own his personal car — a luxury Howard couldn’t afford in Perth, where he still relied on horse-drawn carriages for transportation. The gap between Australia and East Africa was indeed vast.

The phrase ”clothing, food, housing, and transportation” truly reflects the standard of living and the industrial level of a nation. Boosted by East Africa’s robust automobile industry, automobiles have become an important daily necessity, which ordinary families can afford.

For non-industrial countries, this is not the case at all. Even if earnings are high, the costs are also high, for example, in Argentina, a typical agricultural power, where purchasing a car costs significantly more than it does for East Africans.

A similar situation was witnessed in the former Far East Empire. When Ernst was in school, textbooks described the flamboyant consumption of Americans. But as the era advanced, the Far East Empire’s economy and industry developed, aligning its consumption behavior and standards with Western countries. However, the reality is that the average income of ordinary people in the Far East Empire still lags behind Europe and America.

Of course, overlooking the most crucial factor of productivity, the income of ordinary people in every country doesn’t hold much significance. The upper class will always find ways to seize the wealth of the lower class—it’s an irreversible process, be it in slave societies, feudal societies, or capitalist societies—there are no exceptions.

Due to the discrepancy in productivity, the same amount of money held by the lower class in various countries has different purchasing powers. After all, in terms of labor intensity, most countries are not very different. In fact, laborers in less developed countries often work harder. Even Africa has diligent laborers like Aud Biao.

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”This is the aluminum refinery in Dar es Salaam City, the second-largest aluminum refinery in the Marine Province, with the largest being in Morogoro City.”

The reason the largest aluminum refinery in the Marine Province is in Morogoro City is mainly due to Morogoro City’s abundant electric power resources. After the completion of the Morogoro Hydroelectric Station, it not only meets the local demand but also supplies electricity to other cities within the Marine Province.

”Our province doesn’t have a particularly developed aluminum industry. The entirety of East Africa’s aluminum industry center is in Xinde City. If you’ve been to Xinde, you would understand the tremendous scale of its aluminum industry.”

”In recent years, the aluminum industry on the West Coast has been developing rapidly, with a trend of surpassing the East Coast.”

Xinde City, originally a small town at the estuary of the Zambezi River, gained its standing among East Africa’s East Coast cities solely through the development of the aluminum industry.

However, the fastest-growing region in recent years is still the West Coast of East Africa, due to the rich resources of bauxite and other minerals in the South Atlantic. In the past lives, Brazil, and Guinea were major exporters of bauxite.

Almost every well-known city on the West Coast has some aluminum industry, for example, Luanda and Cabinda, as well as the Gabon Province, which was recently incorporated into East Africa, has aluminum industrial layouts.

The terrain on the West Coast is somewhat similar to southern Brazil’s coastal areas, giving the West Coast a significant advantage in hydropower, such as the series of waterfalls near the Congo River’s estuary, which indicates immense potential for hydropower.

Yet, the West Coast’s hydropower potential hasn’t been fully developed due to the difficulty. Building a hydroelectric station on the Congo River is quite challenging, but the Congo River is merely the most identifiable and representative river on the West Coast. Therefore, even without developing the hydropower resources of the Congo River, the region’s hydropower is enough to support current industrial and social needs.

The Dar es Salaam City aluminum refinery, only the second in Marine Province according to Pasteur, is enough to make Howard feel the strength of East Africa’s aluminum industry.

The aluminum refinery in Dar es Salaam City is a typical large-scale state-owned enterprise of East Africa, built during the Second Five-Year Plan era, using the most advanced technology and equipment at the time.

Due to the early commencement and extensive investment in the aluminum industry, East Africa possesses the most complete aluminum industrial system. In Ernst’s view, aluminum can be considered one of the most critical metals humanity has developed and utilized in the past century. After all, steel and copper are traditional metals that humanity has used for thousands of years.

Looking at the massive Dar es Salaam City aluminum refinery made Howard realize his previous understanding was somewhat shallow. Although countries like East Africa, the United States, France, etc., have engaged in large-scale aluminum production.

However, it wasn’t until visiting in person that Howard understood the aluminum industry had become an essential material comparable to other common metals, and this further made Howard realize that the development of the aluminum industry is promising.

”Mr. Pasteur, may I ask where your refinery mainly sources its raw materials?”

”Some of it comes from the south of our country, while another portion should be imported from abroad. I remember that part of the bauxite for Dar es Salaam City is imported from French Southeast Asian colonies.”

The French Southeast Asian colony mentioned by Pasteur, to be specific, is Vietnam. Vietnam is a country rich in bauxite resources, and East Africa has always preferred to import a portion of its mineral resources from abroad.

This is the foundation of Dar es Salaam City’s industrial development. The city itself does not lack mineral resources, but they are mostly small mines and not diverse. Therefore, its industrial energy and minerals are either purchased from other regions within the country or directly imported from overseas.