Chapter 1014 Light Industry
As time goes by, the contradiction between Japan and Russia has become increasingly acute, and along with it, many domestic industrial projects in East Africa under the East Africa First Five-Year Plan have been completed and put into production.
The First Five-Year Plan is an important national policy that promotes the rapid growth of East Africa's industrialization in a short period of time. This also caused the output of East Africa's industrial products to enter a stage of further rapid growth starting in 1903.
“From 1901 to the present, the industrialization process in East Africa has continued to accelerate, and a large number of industrial products have been domestically produced. As long as these products are produced, they will inevitably face an unavoidable problem, that is, the sales of these products To whom? ”
“Since the 1990s, the country has begun to create a large national market. However, although it is feasible to rely solely on the domestic market to ensure industrial production in East Africa, it also has great negative effects, resulting in Distribution contradiction, this contradiction cannot be eliminated in a short time.”
"So our country must rely on foreign markets to ease the instability of domestic supply and demand. Even in the early stages of industrialization, the rapid production of a large number of industrial products will lead to oversupply. However, through the export of foreign commodities, this can be alleviated to a certain extent. Alleviating the inconsistency in domestic distribution issues. ”
The reason why the Soviet Union was able to thrive in its first two five-year plans was that, in addition to the excellent economic crisis situation in various countries at the time, the most important thing was to create new policies through redistribution. It created a huge consumer market, allowing the country's industrial development to achieve a positive cycle after the Soviet industrial system was established.
East Africa is similar to the United States in that it created huge domestic market demand through colonial means. Originally, the immigrant group was a truly proletarian group, not only without material property, but also without work and income, but After immigration, the indigenous people's land was obtained through plunder, and value was created based on this management.
So the large domestic market that Sweet mentioned is also the basic guarantee for the current industrial construction in East Africa. East Africa is in the transition stage from an agricultural country to an industrial country. Agriculture is still the main body of the East African economy, and the consumption power level of East African farmers above the world average.
The most typical one is the East African light industry, led by the textile industry. In the past, most of the light industry products were almost consumed by the country's agricultural population, and only a small amount was exported as basic industrial products to developed countries such as Germany as raw materials for new industrial production. for further processing.
Sweet mentioned: "With the construction of the textile industry in the west, the expansion of the textile industry in various regions, as well as technological progress, improvement in mechanical efficiency and other factors, my country's textile industry production has ushered in great progress."
“East Africa has no shortage of cotton for textile industry production , linen, silk, wool and other basic materials. In the past, the cotton planting area in East Africa has been continuously expanding. From the north to the south, from the east to the west, a large number of cotton fields have been constructed and put into production, with various varieties and types. Among them, the output of long-staple cotton has been second only to Egypt. ."
"At the same time East Africa is one of the few major hemp-growing countries in the world. Ramie, jute, sisal and other hemp are widely cultivated in East Africa, and have formed a considerable scale. Among them, sisal production ranks first in the world."
"The scale of raw silk production. Smaller, but East African climate environment and past countries Under the guidance of policy support, my country's raw silk production is currently second only to Asian countries. "The wool textile industry, whose main raw material is wool, is rapidly forming a scale in southern my country and can basically meet the domestic market demand in the future."
"At the population level, my country's fertility rate has remained at a high level over the years, and the labor force required by various industries is relatively sufficient."
"In conjunction with the support and construction of light industry during the First Five-Year Plan period, my country's textile industry Development is changing with each passing day, but this also puts higher demands on the market, and East Africa’s domestic market in the textile industry The advantage is not as good as other big countries. "
This is very easy to understand. Other big countries in the world are mainly located in the temperate zone, and the temperate zone is characterized by four distinct seasons. Therefore, the demand for clothing is naturally greater than that in East Africa. Almost everyone Each season has corresponding clothing, and in order to keep warm in winter, clothing requires more textile raw materials.
This can also be seen from the construction of palaces of European royal families. Palaces in many countries are divided into winter palaces and summer palaces. This was the case in Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the original French Empire, while the East African palaces It is impossible to build two buildings according to the rainy season and the dry season.
As a tropical country, East Africa has small seasonal changes, and is mainly focused on changes in precipitation rather than temperature differences. In this case, East Africans only need simple clothing to meet their daily needs.
This is obviously relatively unfavorable news for the textile industry in East Africa. On the one hand, East Africa has sufficient raw materials, but on the other hand, demand is low. The expansion of the textile industry in East Africa will inevitably solve market problems. Sweet said: "Therefore, my country's textile industry has passed the stage of only catering to the domestic market in the past. In the future, the further development of the textile industry will inevitably lead to more international markets."
" However, the competitiveness in the international market is not strong, and the textile industry has always been the shortcomings of East Africa's light industry. my country's light industry has developed vigorously in recent years and finally formed a system, but it has also lost valuable time to enter the international market. "
The development of light industry in East Africa can be said to be a weak link in the field of industrial development in East Africa. It was not until the First Five-Year Plan period that many light industry products in East Africa were able to achieve industrial production.
A simple summary of light industry is food, textile, furniture, papermaking, printing, daily chemicals, stationery, cultural supplies, sporting goods industry and other industries that are closely related to people's lives.
It can be said without mercy that the most basic products such as pots and pans have gone through a long process from scratch in East Africa.
In the early days, light industrial products in East Africa basically relied on imports and handicrafts. For example, the most common product, bricks, the early production in East Africa basically started by inheriting the brick kilns of the Zanzibar Sultanate.
Even now, East Africa has a relatively large gap in light industrial products. On the one hand, productivity still exists in the form of traditional handicrafts, with weak technology and low output. On the other hand, East Africa’s rapidly increasing population has made East Africa The demand for light industrial products has been on the rise.
And this traditional handicraft industry still has some tenacious vitality in East Africa. This is one of the important reasons why East Africa is still not an industrial country.
So East Africa's light industry was quite weak in the first thirty years. Except for important areas such as the textile industry, many light industries basically did not exist. Instead, they relied on imports and traditional handicrafts to meet the country's demand for light industry products.
It was only after the establishment of the heavy industry system in East Africa that it began to drive the development of light industry and realize the large-scale production of most light industry products.
However, it still faces serious problems such as small scale, scattered production, and poor technology. Therefore, during the First Five-Year Plan, East Africa focused on the problem of weak development of light industry and invested in a number of new modern light industry factories.
Among them, the cotton textile industry accounts for the majority, especially in the western Angola region, which has formed a new cotton textile industry production base.
The food industry in East Africa is a dominant industry in the light industry. Relying on East Africa's rich products and huge market demand, it developed earlier. In particular, the northeast and north are relatively developed and can become competitive with European and American countries.
However, under the overall national conditions of East Africa, which focuses on investment in heavy industry, the serious imbalance or lack of light industry is a serious problem, which cannot be quickly eliminated in a short time.
Moreover, the overall light industry in East Africa is insufficient, but some parts of it are facing the problem of lack of market. This contradictory phenomenon is becoming more and more prominent in East Africa.
So while looking for markets for East African light industry, we must continue to upgrade and transform the East African light industry field at the same time.
The task of the East African government is to guide and integrate the domestic handicraft industry to transform into light industry, and at the same time seek many international markets to inject development impetus into some of the already developed light industries in East Africa.
(End of this chapter)