Chapter 626: Closedness and Openness
“Dire Dawa City also wants to engage in border trade. Do you think this business is feasible?”
“In fact, Dire Dawa City’s idea may not be realized. , but practical factors must be taken into consideration. For example, the coast of the Red Sea is a place where merchants gather, so I think their This plan is very unreliable. Our own ships sometimes sell goods along the Red Sea. What’s more, the Red Sea now relies on the Suez Canal to connect the two major markets of Europe and Asia, so there is no shortage of goods.”
“This is not necessarily the case. Maritime transportation is convenient, but it may not be able to meet all needs. For example, the tropical economy of the Northern Province For economic crops, we must first sell them to Europe, because other regions do not have the consumption capacity, or we are not satisfied with their quotations, so the market demand is not a cold number, but a flexible one. Dire Dawa City is on the border. It’s not necessarily that such a market does not exist, but it’s just not worth investing our energy; Give full play to the capabilities of the market and border people to develop the market.”
The two most important markets in East Africa are Europe and the Far East. The European market mainly supplies raw materials. After all, East African industrial products are definitely not able to compete with them. Germany and Austria compete, and the Far East is the main sales area for industrial products in East Africa.
Although the Middle East is the closest to East Africa, a large part of it is managed by Zanzibar businessmen, and the sales channels are in the hands of Zanzibar businessmen. They purchase goods from East Africa, and whether they can make money in the end depends on their own methods.
And now in the Middle East, countries are not as rich as in the previous life. The Ottoman Empire was too big to fail, so the talking heads in the region are still there, unlike the Arab countries in the previous life.
A large part of the industrial products of the Ottoman Empire came from Europe. It is not easy to squeeze in the industrial products of East Africa. The Arabs are smarter. Don’t look at the current decline. In the long medieval times, the Arab region was the world. Areas with prosperous commerce, especially relying on the ancient Silk Road, monopolized trade between the East and the West. The monopoly was only broken by Europeans after the Age of Discovery.
East Africa mainly follows the Omani route. Oman and Zanzibar share the same origin, and Oman is an independent Arab country. In the past, the Indian Ocean coast was a traditional maritime power, and the maritime countries were not bad in business, especially Oman is a country that relies heavily on overseas trade.
Industrial product sales are mainly controlled by the East African government in the Far East. Although East African industrial products are of poor quality, their prices are low, and poor quality depends on how you classify them. Compared with Europe, it is definitely worse, but for Europe and the United States, Foreign countries still have some advantages, especially after the economic crisis of 1873, East Africa introduced a lot of European equipment and technology.
East Africa's largest exports are definitely raw materials, with grain, tropical cash crops, and minerals as the main content.
As for the destination countries for raw material exports, the more developed the industry, the stronger the demand. Obviously, such regions are the Central and Eastern European countries, mainly the German region.
Only when there is a certain industry can a large amount of raw materials be consumed, and many raw materials for industrial development cannot be fully available in Europe, especially the three countries of Germany, Austria and Russia, which are located in the interior of Europe.
However, there is nothing wrong with being a supplier of raw materials, especially for East Africa at present. It has fewer things to do, can make money, and can also consolidate relations with relevant countries.
After all, raw material production is different from industry. It does not require too advanced and complicated technologies, and management is relatively convenient. Even feudal countries can do well in this aspect. The flexibility in rural areas is much higher than that in cities. , because agriculture itself has the characteristics of self-sufficiency, and industry is extremely dependent on the market.
When workers are unemployed, the risks they face are much higher. As for farmers, of course they are also at risk of unemployment, but usually they encounter famines, food harvests fail, or the land is annexed, and they become tenant farmers with hired labor, like the owner-cultivators in this era. Very nice, especially for European yeoman farmers.
East Africa will not have this problem for the time being, because East Africa has a collective agricultural model, and agricultural production is concentrated, but it is different from traditional manors, capitalist farms, or collective farms, and has the characteristics of all aspects. . In other words, the left is not left enough and the right is not right enough, forming a mixed agricultural economic system. However, Ernst is not easy to change now. In the West, people are very particular about choosing sides and a black-and-white philosophical thinking. The problem is that no matter whether it was a capitalist country or a democratic country in the previous life, planning and market could not be completely eliminated. There is me among you, and you among me. It is nothing more than a question of share.
As a major supplier of raw materials, East Africa's agricultural model is relatively stable, and its annual agricultural output is improving steadily. There are no dramatic changes, and more will fall into place.
Correspondingly, East Africa's agricultural output is generally in excess. If it were a normal country, East Africa should now reduce production on a large scale to balance its balance of payments. However, East Africa is not a normal country, and the international market is not There is not that much demand, so East Africa can only exert its own initiative and use the domestic market to absorb excess agricultural production capacity.
Including various large-scale projects, national infrastructure construction, and production capacity contraction. Production capacity contraction is not a real contraction, but a further optimization and rational allocation of agricultural resources.
A lot of cultivated land has been opened up in East Africa, but it is withdrawn and restored every year. There are also a lot of cultivated lands that are converted into forests and grasslands, especially in the eastern region.
This is the situation in the Northern Province, which mainly converts farmland into grassland. A large number of pastures have been eliminated. At the same time, the planting of cash crops is actively promoted in order to seek higher economic value.
“The problem in Dire Dawa City is not a simple economic issue, but involves a national problem. There are currently close to ten open port cities in East Africa, some of which are not even completed, and Dire Dawa City It is very different from these coastal areas.
It represents the border trade problem in East Africa. Border trade has always existed, but we have not liberalized it. There is no border trade in the northern Turkana Province. The main purpose is to inject blood to the Abyssinian Empire to prevent them from being at a disadvantage in the competition with Italy. The same is true for our arms trade with the Orange people in the south.”
"Dire Dawa is also an important military town, so it is more worthy of our discussion here. The first issue it considers should be military issues. Of course, from the perspective of immigration, the local economy must be developed, otherwise it will only rely on Government financial support can only relieve urgent needs. The city of Gezira in the Nile River Province is doing very well.
Of course, the situation in Gezira City is also very special, and the entire Nile River Province is also outstanding. Zira City has the most favorable conditions, is suitable for development, and is located on the border, while the conditions in Dire Dawa City are much worse than those in Gezira City.”
“In the final analysis, Dire Dawa City is the one to develop. As for the issue of not being open, I think it should be open. East Africa is no longer what it used to be. We should be the most powerful country in Africa. Security issues are no longer very significant. The strongest forces in the north are nothing more than the Italians and the British. In the past few years, the British We already control Egypt, but we are mainly bordered by Sudan and British Somaliland in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The threat is not at the same level as Cape Town.
Not to mention Italy, there is almost no military threat. , and we need our support to gain a foothold on the Ethiopian plateau.”
This is not because East African officials humiliated Italy, but because of the traditional psychological superiority of the Germans over the Italians, and Italy itself is nothing. Powerful countries, especially after the restoration of the Kingdom of Naples, were only slightly stronger than the Kingdom of Portugal in the eyes of East Africa.
(End of this chapter)