African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1218: Chapter 227: Industrial Dependence

However, as time goes by, especially after the implementation of the new economic policy in East Africa, the East African beverage market in recent years can truly be said to have ushered in a glorious era of ”a hundred schools of thought contend, a hundred flowers bloom.”

As a typical light industry, the production and research of the beverage industry do not pose a technical challenge, which means that within just a few years after the new economic policy, tens of thousands of beverage brands have emerged in the East African market. Without too much investment, even a small household beverage workshop, as long as the taste is acceptable, can stand its ground in society.

Of course, this also easily causes several problems, such as lack of regulation. The quality of products from many small workshops and factories will definitely have issues, but this is clearly something the current East African government finds difficult to handle.

With so many new things suddenly emerging in the market under the new economic policy, it is also impossible for the East African government to inspect each one.

Of course, compared to countries in Europe and America, the problems existing behind the prosperity of the East African beverage market are just minor issues, so the East African government is not in a hurry to make large-scale rectifications.

Speaking of the East Africa World Expo, many tea varieties from the Far East Empire have been well received by the East African people, with many placing orders on the spot, leaving the favored tea merchants grinning from ear to ear.

Many tea merchants from the Far East are visiting East Africa for the first time, so they do not understand this large and economically strong emerging tea market in East Africa.

The East Africa World Expo provides them with such a channel, allowing them to better understand East African national conditions, and through feedback from the East African public, makes them realize that the East African tea market has great potential.

Tea is just one of the representative products of the Far East Empire, while other products like porcelain, silk, and handicrafts have also attracted attention from tourists and businessmen from around the world.

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Rhein City.

The East African government has been closely monitoring the situation of the East Africa World Expo, and the news coming from Dar es Salaam City, First Town, and Bajamojo City makes the East African government feel very satisfied.

Sivert said, ”From the current feedback, the expo is quite a success. Now, through this platform, information about our country’s products, industrial strength, urban development status, and more, is rapidly spreading to southern countries and regions.”

”If progress goes smoothly, this will greatly accelerate our pace of capturing the market in southern countries and regions for products like electronics, automobiles, textiles and gain more stable overseas markets.”

The most important reason for East Africa to host this expo is to establish East Africa’s influence in southern countries and regions.

Thereby allowing these countries and regions to witness East Africa’s true level of development and strong comprehensive national power, thus establishing East Africa’s authority in southern countries and regions.

This essentially undermines the foundation of traditional European powers like England and France; East Africa and the United States are each digging at the corners of European nations, and it can be foreseen that once the European war ends, the victors of Europe will be quite aggrieved, not to mention Europe being battered, with diminished global influence and voice.

Ernst said, ”This time, the expo’s scale and influence are significant, and in the next six months, continuous attention is required.”

”This is different from our attitude towards Europe. Now, the European market only has a temporary vacancy due to war, and once the war ends, those vacancies will be filled.”

”So it can be anticipated that after the war ends and Europe rebuilds and factories resume work, international market competition will become even more intense.”

”And if we don’t promptly digest and find stable overseas bases for the powerful industrial production capacity we built during this period, it will be very dangerous.”

”Thus, southern countries and regions are our new frontiers for digesting the wealth acquired during the war, integrating these countries and regions into our East African goods market and raw material supply system.”

”In this way, after the war, our country’s industry will not rapidly shrink due to overproduction, allowing our country to tide over the economic difficulties.”

In reality, in previous generations after the war, the global economy still ushered in a new prosperity because Europe was severely damaged by war, and it would take time for European countries to restore normal social production.

In the war, large amounts of farmland, houses, roads, and factories were destroyed, which also created strong post-war demands in Europe.

And once Europe’s economy fully recovered, roughly marked when Germany’s economy recovered, the world then faced an unprecedented economic crisis, which also laid the groundwork for World War II.

This is easy to understand: in the previous generation, the United States’ capacity expanded rapidly during World War I, and maintaining this expansion was possible due to post-war European depression, but once countries like the UK, France, and Germany resumed production, overcapacity in the market became inevitable.

So from an economic perspective, the outbreak of World War II could not be separated from the United States, because the main culprit for the pre-WWII economic depression was the unrestrained expansion of America’s frenzied capital.

This involves two aspects: first, the severe domestic overcapacity in the U.S., and second, the U.S. overlooking the risks, while also investing in Germany to rearm, rapidly restoring German industry. Given other countries restoring and developing their industry, the market capacity short term could not support this economic prosperity.

Why single out the U.S. and Germany? The root cause lies in that before WWII, the U.S. and Germany were the world’s two most powerful industrial nations, greatly impacting the global economy.

In this timeline, East Africa, a heavyweight player, also emerges. Ernst can foresee that future post-war economic crises, when they occur, will happen earlier than before and on a grander, more powerful scale.

Therefore, in light of the inevitable occurrence of such a profoundly influential global economic crisis, managing East Africa’s large vessel becomes even more crucial.

And undoubtedly, the most effective means to respond to an economic crisis is to shift contradictions to the colonies, an important reason why the UK and France have been able to smoothly overcome economic crises in the past, which also reflects why Germany was more belligerent than the two countries.

Besides the Junker aristocracy system, even without provoking war, Germany’s capacity to handle economic crises without colonies as buffer pools was much smaller than that of England and France. At this time, unless Germany is willing to carry out social reforms, offer profits to the people, and expand the domestic market capacity, but even if they do so, it may not yield results, or might even backfire.

Compared to that, the risks of war, a gamble, are much smaller than actively reforming. So it would be better to fight it out with England and France. Reforms could potentially self-sabotage, and even if successful, would only allow Germany to temporarily get through the economic danger period.

War, although also carries the risk of the country perishing, presents enormous visible returns, for the victors could dominate all of Europe. So if Ernst were the ruler of Germany, war would be the only choice.

In the end, societal resources are limited in any given period. For East Africa to safely weather an economic crisis, it must acquire more overseas markets and colonies, which must also be stable overseas markets and colonies.

Just like Germany’s pre-war colonies, which seemed large but, in essence, did not serve their purpose, rather rendered Germany’s investment futile, if not for East Africa’s underpinning, Germany would not have gained anything.

So East Africa’s ambition for regional economic dominance and colonies must heed the lessons from Germany, not allowing the former world order’s creators, England and France, to lure them away with a mere gesture after the European war ends.

To develop economic colonies, there are simply two methods: military threat and economic inducement. The East Africa World Expo falls under the latter, by connecting with markets in southern countries and regions, thus making them form a dependence on East African industry.