African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1428: Chapter 12: Intercity Cooperation

After the city economic meeting was held, the Kitwe city government sent representatives to Lubumbashi for economic exchange activities.

Lubumbashi.

The capital city of Swabia Province in East Africa, formerly one of the four major provinces in the Congo (Gold), and the capital of Katanga Province; even after the Congolese government split Katanga Province into four smaller provinces, Lubumbashi remained the capital of Upper Katanga Province.

The reason the Congolese government split Katanga Province into four provinces was evidently to guard against local separatism.

Kinshasa was the capital of the former Congo, but Kinshasa was too far west in relation to Congo’s territory, with weak control over the eastern regions.

On the other hand, the eastern region of the Congo centering around Lubumbashi not only has vast territory, a large population, relatively advanced economy, and a mixture of many ethnic groups but also a large number of neighboring countries, making the Congo frequently a land of turmoil.

In the Swabia Province under East African administration, its range is within the territory of the former Congo’s Katanga Province; East Africa apparently does not worry about facing the situations that the former Congo encountered.

Nowadays, Lubumbashi has become one of the most important cities in central East Africa, with a prosperous economy and a large population.

The mayor of Deberne, who had just finished the meeting, felt the gap between the two places upon arriving in Lubumbashi with his team.

Mayor Deberne couldn’t help but sigh: ”Lubumbashi has developed incredibly fast over the years. Last century, at least our Kitwe could have held its own against them, but now Lubumbashi is more than twice the size of our city just in terms of scale.”

Kitwe and Lubumbashi, as the two largest cities in the copper belt, both relied on local copper mine resources to start up, but after entering the 20th century, Lubumbashi accelerated its development, continuously widening the gap with Kitwe.

Secretary Baya said: ”Mr. Mayor doesn’t need to be excessively self-deprecating. Lubumbashi’s policy resources are much better than ours. If we had policy conditions like Lubumbashi, we wouldn’t develop worse than them. After all, both are cities in the copper belt, and in basic conditions, there’s no superior-inferior distinction. The current economic gap is indeed caused by historical reasons.”

Mayor Deberne strongly agreed with what the secretary said, saying, ”Compared to Lubumbashi, we indeed receive less support, and Lubumbashi, as the provincial capital of Swabia, can mobilize resources from the entire province, naturally having an advantage over us. Plus, Lubumbashi’s development started earlier by a few years.”

”The most regrettable thing is that Lubumbashi became the hub of the Central Railway, increasing its advantages further over the past decades.”

The Central Railway forks from Lubumbashi, heading northwest directly to Jisan City in Hessen Province, and heading west directly to Cabinda City. Undoubtedly, the Central Railway, as the most important railway artery in East Africa, provides the most significant economic benefits to cities along the line.

At that time, when East Africa was constructing the Central Railway, both Lubumbashi and Kitwe were candidates for this hub, but ultimately, the more economically superior Lubumbashi became the winner.

And this is exactly because Lubumbashi was the first city developed by East Africa in the copper belt, even earlier than Kitwe.

Mayor Deberne continued, ”Nowadays, Lubumbashi is one of the few cities nationwide with a population exceeding a million, whereas our city’s population is only slightly over 300,000. It’s estimated that it will be a long time before we can surpass Lubumbashi.”

Relying on resources like copper mines, the copper belt region becomes an industrially quite developed area in East Africa and can be completely likened to the Ruhr District as an industrial zone. However, the Ruhr District rose mainly due to coal mines, whereas the copper belt relies on copper mines. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

As the largest city in the copper belt, Lubumbashi ranks seventh in the current national economy of East Africa, temporarily ahead of Luanda City in western East Africa.

And from this, it can be seen that the East African economy is expanding eastward towards the west, after all, the history of development in Eastern and Central East Africa is early, and the development of the west is the latest. So even if Luanda and other western cities develop rapidly, in the near term, they cannot surpass the East and Central regions.

Baya said: ”Lubumbashi is an industrial heavy town, with high transport status, science, education, health, and cultural resources are also higher than ours in Kitwe, so it’s easy to gather a lot of population. However, the economic problems we face won’t leave Lubumbashi unscathed.”

The economic problem mentioned by Secretary Baya mainly lies in the industrial structure problem of the copper belt. Although Kitwe is the second-largest city in the copper belt, ultimately, the leading city of the copper belt is Lubumbashi.

If the economic transformation of the entire copper belt fails, both Lubumbashi and Kitwe will be affected, and without a doubt, the economic losses suffered by Lubumbashi will surely be the greatest.

Lying back in his car seat, Mayor Deberne leisurely said, ”So, this is the reason I came to Lubumbashi; the economy of the copper belt rises and falls together. If the industry of the copper belt goes bad, everyone in the region won’t have a good time.”

”At this moment, Kitwe and Lubumbashi should unite, economically support each other, integrate the whole copper belt’s resources, reduce internal competition, and act together externally.”

The purpose of Mayor Deberne’s visit to Lubumbashi was to reach a cooperation agreement with the local government of Lubumbashi. Only when the two cities reach consensus can they integrate the resources and industry of the entire copper belt, thereby helping the copper belt to complete the industrial transformation in the economic field.