Chapter 1015 Market
Ernst said: "Light industry has begun to receive attention in the current development stage of our country, but industrialization is a complex and huge problem."
"Over the past thirty years Here, our development focus in East Africa has always been agriculture, infrastructure and heavy industry. Even if the First Five-Year Plan is completed, the problem of East Africa's light industry cannot be solved. Therefore, during the Second Five-Year Plan, the development of light industry will become one of the key tasks of the government. 1. "
Although East Africa is already a well-deserved world power in terms of size, its development level is slightly better than Japan and Tsarist Russia among the world's major countries. Its capital, technology, and foundation are compared with those of relatively developed countries. All are relatively poor.
The advantages of East Africa as a colonial country have moderated this problem. For example, in terms of per capita consumption of agricultural products, East Africa is much higher than Russia and Japan. However, due to insufficient productivity and not reaching the level of the United States, it is barely on par with Europe. The countries are equal, otherwise East Africa's territory, cultivated land, and resource volume should exceed that of most European countries.
After all, the current population of East Africa does not exceed 100 million, while Europe has a population of more than 300 million. At the same time, the total area of East Africa is more than two million square kilometers larger than that of Europe.
“If the Russo-Japanese War breaks out now, it will be a favorable opportunity for us in East Africa, mainly to expand the Russian market. Without considering colonies, Russia has the second largest population in the world and the largest area in the world. First, the level of industrial and agricultural development is above the world average.”
“Russia has always been one of our country’s important markets, but the competition we face in the Russian market is also relatively high. Fierce, including Western European and American capital, they have first-mover advantages in Russia.”
“So the Russo-Japanese War will be an important opportunity for our country to expand the Russian market, even if it increases our market share in Russia by one percentage point. That is also a huge improvement.”
For a country with a population of over 100 million, one percentage point may mean a market of one million people, which is very attractive to any country.
Of course, Ernst did not want to support Russia's victory over Japan, but if East Africa showed a little more goodwill to Russia than other countries in this war, it would be more convenient for East Africa's commercial trade with Russia.
Germany in the Russo-Japanese War in the previous life is a better example. When Britain and the United States clearly supported Japan, France did not support Russia in the conflict with Japan in the Far East because of Britain and its own interests.
This is understandable. Although France's relations with Russia continue to heat up, the French government's purpose is to let Russia contain Germany, rather than wasting energy in the Far East and Japan. This allowed France to maintain its position during the Russo-Japanese War. Neutral, on the contrary, Germany gave Russia the greatest support.
Of course, although Germany benefited from the Russo-Japanese War, this short-term "friendship" would ultimately be difficult to play due to the great geopolitical and political differences between Germany and Russia.
East Africa is different. There is almost no fundamental conflict of interest between East Africa and Russia. This means that if East Africa supports Russia in the war, the relationship between the two countries can be further improved in the future. Although the current Russian government is likely to only have a dozen years of life, but East Africa needs this window of more than ten years to boost its country's development.
"We must seize every opportunity so that we can achieve rapid and healthy development of East African industry in a relatively short period of time. Therefore, in the middle and later stages of the First Five-Year Plan, we must quickly solve the problems in our country's industrial product market."
It is easy to expand the industrial scale of East Africa in a short period of time, but the market is relatively fixed. If the market problem cannot be solved, East Africa can only achieve its goal by further squeezing the potential of its domestic citizens, and this is only the last resort.
At present, there are only a handful of countries with independent power in the world. Excluding a few top-ranking powers, most of them are colonial or semi-colonial countries. Therefore, in the foreign market of East African industry, Russia is an important part of the scale. It is large, has relatively strong consumption power, and is unable to compete with East African industries. Russia's industry is weak. Although East Africa and Russia seem to be incompatible with each other, East Africa has left Russia behind in the field of heavy industry, and in the field of light industry, Russia does not have the advantages of East Africa.
Take the textile industry as an example. The Russian textile industry, like Germany, lacks the supply of raw materials. In order to solve this problem, the Soviet Union built a large number of new water conservancy projects in Central Asia to alleviate this problem. , and although the current Russian government has similar ideas, it is unable to do so like the Soviet Union and is powerless. This is the advantage of East Africa.
Among the foreign markets in East Africa, the most important ones are the Central and Eastern European markets, and Central Europe is undoubtedly the German regional market dominated by Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Eastern European market can basically be summarized as Russia, followed by the Far East market, and finally the It is the Middle East market, which is also the three largest foreign market in East Africa.
Beyond the three major foreign markets, the South American market is expanding rapidly, but it is ultimately unable to compete with the three major markets, and East Africa also lacks opportunities to accelerate its entry into the South American market. The last time it happened was because of Spain during the Spanish-American War. Defeated, East Africa gained a foothold in the South American market through Spanish connections.
Although Spain and Portugal are the main suzerain countries in South America, the South American economy is now mainly controlled by the United Kingdom. If this were not the case, the increase in East Africa's trade in the Argentine market should rise rapidly.
Many South American countries are economic colonies, and their politics and economy are greatly influenced by European countries. Therefore, if East Africa wants to achieve outstanding results locally, it will be necessary unless Europe has no time to take care of South America.
In the previous life, this opportunity was World War I. When European countries had no time to think about anything else, the United States took the opportunity to enter the South American market and replace the local advantages of other countries. Therefore, before a large-scale war broke out in Europe, East Africa could not be too Successfully launched infiltration work in South America.
The Far East market and the Middle East market are also in a similar situation. In the Far East market, the "economic alliance" of the United States, Britain, and Japan has an absolute advantage, while East Africa is at a disadvantage locally, so East Africa can only develop in areas with relatively weak economies. And focus on defense.
The size of the Middle East market can only barely meet the needs of East Africa, and there is not much room for further growth. After all, the Ottoman Empire is still the dominant empire in the Middle East, and due to climate reasons, the population in the Middle East is small and the consumption power is insufficient. The coast of the Persian Gulf, which was the richest in later generations, is now the most prosperous of pirates.
So among the many markets, the Russian market is the most important to East Africa today. Even if the Soviet Russian regime comes to power in the future, they will not be able to completely get rid of the influence of East Africa. After all, Russia’s geographical location determines Russia’s interest in rubber. and other tropical products to form a certain dependence.
Therefore, even if the layout of East Africa in Russia is affected by regime changes, it will not be too big, and as long as Ernst takes advantage of his foresight, he can avoid some losses and maximize benefits.
Ernst said: "Industrialization cannot be done behind closed doors. We in East Africa are not as good as Russia in some conditions, so we cannot ignore the importance of the international market, and the connection with the international market has always been East Africa's priority. Disadvantages, this places higher demands on our various government departments and enterprises.”
Even if East Africa develops a planned economy, it must have flexible means to alleviate some of the shortcomings of the planned economy. The planned economy also requires commercial trade, especially when East Africa's resource situation is not as developed as Russia.
So connecting with the international market is a long-term task for many state-owned enterprises in East Africa. Regardless of the past life of the United States or the Soviet Union, although their economies have gone to two extremes, they all have their own forms of markets. It is impossible for East Africa to set up a mutual economic assistance committee. , so the connection between East Africa’s foreign trade and the country’s current planned economic system also requires long-term exploration.
(End of this chapter)