Chapter 1364 Urban Cooperation
Shortly after the municipal economic conference was held, the Kitwe Municipal Government sent representatives to Lubumbashi for economic exchange activities.
Lubumbashi.
The provincial capital of Schwarben, East Africa, one of the four major provinces of the previous Congo (Gold), the capital of Kadanaga Province. Later, after the Kaddana province was split into four small provinces by the Congo government The capital of Gandana Province.
The reason why the Congolese government split Katanga into four provinces is obviously to prevent local separatism.
The capital of Congo in its previous life was Kinshasa, but Kinshasa was too far west of Congo and had weak control over the eastern region.
The eastern region of the Congo with Lu Benbai as the core, not only has a large area, a large population, and a relatively developed economy, and there are many nations. At the same time, there are many neighbors around the Congo, which makes the Congo often become a place of war.
The Swabia Province under East Africa's rule is within the Katanga Province of Congo in its previous life. East Africa is obviously not worried about encountering the situation faced by Congo in its previous life.
Today, Lubumbashi has become one of the most important cities in central East Africa, with a prosperous economy and a large population.
Mayor De Born, who had just finished the meeting, brought his staff to Lubumbashi and felt the gap between the two places.
Mayor De Born couldn't help but sigh: "Lubumbashi has developed so fast in recent years. In the last century, we in Kitwe could at least compete with them, but now Lubumbashi is bigger than us in terms of size." More than twice the city’s size.”
Kitwe and Lubumbashi, as the two largest cities in the copper mining belt, both started relying on local copper resources. However, after entering the 20th century, Lubumbashi accelerated its development and continuously opened up the distance between Kitwe and Kitwe. gap.
The secretary Baya said: "Mr. Mayor does not need to be too arrogant. Lu Benba's policy resources are much better than us. If we can have the policy conditions of Lu Benbai, it will not be worse than them. In the final analysis, everyone is a copper mines with cities, and there is no one who is good or bad in basic conditions. Now this economic gap is caused by historical reasons. "
For the secretary said, Derbern also agreed very much. He said: "Compared with Lu Benbai, we do have less support. As the provincial capital of Schwarbon, Lu Benbai can mobilize the province in the province in the province. Resources have an advantage than us, and the development of Lu Benbai is more than us in the morning. "
"The most pity is that Lu Benbai became the hub of the Central Railway, which has made Lu Benbai's advantage further increased in the past decades."
The Central Railway branches from Lubumbashi and goes all the way north to the city of Kisan in Hesse Province and all the way to the west to the city of Cabinda. There is no doubt that the Central Railway, as the most important railway trunk line in East Africa, can give people along the line The economic benefits are also most significant for cities.
When East Africa was building the Central Railway, Lubumbashi and Kitwe were both candidates for this hub, but in the end Lubumbashi, which had a better economy, became the winner.
And this is precisely because Lu Benbai is the first city developed by East Africa in the copper ore belt.
De Bern continued: "Today Lubumbashi is one of the only cities in the country with a population of more than one million, but our city's population is only more than 300,000. It is estimated that we will not be able to exceed the population for a long time in the future. Lubumbashi.”
Relying on resources such as copper mines, the copper belt area has become a relatively developed industrial area in East Africa. It can be compared to an industrial area like the Ruhr area. However, the rise of the Ruhr area mainly relies on coal mines, while the Copper Belt relies on copper mines.
As the largest city in the copper belt, Lubumbashi currently ranks seventh in the national economy of East Africa, temporarily higher than Luanda in western East Africa.
From here, we can also see that East Africa's economy has shown a process from east to west. After all, East Africa's development history is early, and the development of the west is the latest. It is impossible to surpass the Middle East.
Baya said: "Lubumbashi is an important industrial town with high transportation status and higher scientific, educational, and cultural resources than ours in Kitwe, so it is easy to gather a large population. However, the economic problems we face, Lubumbashi Nozomi can’t run away.”
The economic problem that Secretary Baya mentioned is mainly the industrial structure of the copper mining belt. Although Kitwe City is the second largest city in the copper mining belt, in the final analysis, the leader of the copper mining belt is Lubumbashi.
If the economic transformation of the entire copper belt fails, both Lubumbashi and Kitwe will be affected, and there is no doubt that Lubumbashi will suffer the greatest economic losses.
De Bern lay on the car seat and said slowly: "So, this is the reason why I came to Lubumbashi. The economy of the copper mining belt will prosper and suffer. If the industry of the copper mining belt is finished, Everyone in the area is not fine.”
"At this time, Kitwe and Lu Benbashi should unite to unite economically, integrate the resources of the entire copper mines, reduce internal competition, and consistently."
The purpose of De Bern coming to Lubumbashi is to reach cooperation with the local government of Lubumbashi. Only when the two cities reach an agreement can the resources and industries of the entire copper mining belt be integrated, thereby helping the copper mining belt complete its economy. Industrial transformation in the field.
However, this is obviously not easy to achieve. After all, the interests of Lubumbashi and Kitwe are not completely consistent, and the two have even had a long-term competitive relationship in the past.
Although Kitvir's volume is much smaller than Lu Benbaibi, Kitve also has an overwhelming advantage over cities other than Lu Benbashi.
Therefore, the two cities have been competing for economic dominance in the copper mining belt since the last century. The most intuitive manifestation is that the two cities have similar industrial structures.
Overlapping industries naturally leads to competition, which in turn leads to fluctuations in product prices. The final result is a fight between the snipe and the clam, with the fisherman profiting.
Two hours later...
De Born and his party finally arrived at the Lubumbashi Municipal Government. The distance from Kitwe to Lubumbashi is more than 100 kilometers. This shows that the relationship between the two cities is complicated. After all, as the saying goes, one mountain cannot tolerate two tigers. .
"Mayor Debern, you are really expensive." Mayor Lu Benbaic, Porke, came to face.
Derbern: "Long time no see, Mayor Port, recently, your city of Lu Benbashi is incredible. The economy has entered the seventh place in the country. >
Hearing Derbern's compliment, Port's heart was very happy, but he still said humblely: "Predecessors planted trees, and future generations have been cool. I just made some small achievements on the basis of the predecessors. Over the years, you have been developing in Kitwei's city.
Through the dialogue between the two, it is enough to see the development gap between Kitwe and Lubumbashi. Lubumbashi is considered a big city in the country, while Kitwe's influence ranks first in the central part of the country.
In fact, if Kitwe's economy is compared across East Africa, it can also be ranked in the middle and upper reaches. However, the gap with real big cities like Lubumbashi is still too obvious.
Debelon said, "Well, we can't compare to Lu Benbai in Kittov. In the last century, we may be able to compare it with Lu Benbashi, but now, we have to admit that Lu Benbabra opened the opening. The gap with Kitvi, we just wanted to chase and couldn't catch up. ? "
De Berne was not polite, but said bluntly: "The purpose of our coming here is very simple. We want to reach cooperation with you, Lubumbashi, to see if we can reach cooperation and invite other cities in the copper mining belt." , to achieve cooperation in the economic field.”
"Hmm! I don't know how to cooperate?" Mayor Pork asked curiously.
De Bern explained: "Mayor Polk, I think you should be very clear that our copper mining belt can occupy an important position in the national economy, relying on copper resources, it can be said that copper mining and non-ferrous metal processing, It is the core industry of our region.”
Bocke nodded and said: "Of course, after all, the importance of copper mines can be seen from the name."
Derbern: "That's right, but I think you should know that the crisis faced by the copper mine industry in recent years is not obvious at this time, but the signs have already been born, that is Development, and the impact of imported copper mines on us. "
"In particular, externally imported copper mines pose the greatest threat to the copper ore belt. They have disrupted the market conditions of domestic copper mines, causing copper ore prices to shrink in recent years."
"The consideration of factors such as diplomacy, environment, colonial development and other factors do not refuse to import copper mines to enter the country. This has made our economic development encounter a bottleneck. If we can't break this bottleneck, let alone go further. Mine bands are likely to fall. "
A typical manifestation of this at the diplomatic level is that East Africa has imported a large amount of copper resources from South American countries. It is well known that East Africa wants to win over South American countries.
If you want to win over these countries, you naturally have to bind your interests with them, and purchasing local agricultural products and mineral resources is one of the most common ways.
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From an objective perspective, East Africa has never been a country with a lack of copper mines, and it can be self -sufficient.
However, the East African government does not mind bringing the two sides closer by purchasing copper mines from Chile, Peru and other countries, not to mention that the copper mines in these countries are large in quantity and high in quality, and the price is not much higher than that of domestic copper mines.
The national interests are obviously not completely consistent with local interests. The East African government does not mind a large number of copper mines that introduce a large number of foreign or colonies. The copper ore zone area obviously minds, but they cannot stop this. After all Without uniqueness, there are still many places to produce copper mines in Dongfu.
Derbern's words also caused Popic to fall into thought, as Derbern said, the copper mines are excessively relying on the development of copper ore resources, and now with external competition, it has indeed impact Lu Benbah.
The reason why Pork does not have the same urgency as Debern is that the conditions in Lubumbashi are much better than Kitwe, in terms of transportation, education, and even resources.
However, now that Derbern has asked questions, he is still willing to push the boat down, but first look at the cooperation plan of Derbern.
So Mayor Polk asked: "How do you plan to solve this problem? How should we cooperate?"
Mayor De Born said: "Now, we cannot stop the central government's resolution to restrict the import of copper ore into East Africa by joining forces with other cities."
"So, if you want to solve this problem, you still have to solve it from us, and copper mines and related industries are our core and foundation, and obviously cannot give up."
"Imported copper ore mainly threatens our upstream industry, but we still have great advantages in the midstream and downstream industries. However, this advantage still risks being overtaken."
"So, we should start from two points. In the upstream industry, that is, copper mining, we should reach an agreement with other areas in the copper belt to allocate mining shares and unify prices based on resource conditions, economic strength, population and other factors to avoid Vicious regional competition.”
"In the middle and lower reaches of industries, a group of enterprises should be merged and coordinated, and a number of similar enterprises should be merged to integrate resources such as technology, talent and other resources, and avoid competition. Risk.
"Coordination is to reshape the industrial chain of government copper mines according to factors such as transportation, resources, geography, environment and other factors. Each city develops its own advantageous industries, thereby promoting the coordinated development of the entire region."
De Bern’s words are easy to understand. If each city in the copper mining belt fights independently, it will be easy for outsiders to take advantage of it. Therefore, everyone should integrate, so that at least they will not be taken advantage of by competitors outside the copper mining belt. net.
Mayor Polk was naturally very moved by De Bern's proposal, but he still said: "But in this way, our copper mining belt must have a unified leadership, otherwise the copper mining belt will be divided into more than a dozen major towns. , I’m afraid it will be difficult to reach an agreement.”
Derbern said: "At this time, the competition between us is completely cheap, so it is better to divide the cake based on their own economic strength."
"For example, the newly merged enterprises will be funded by each of our cities. How much they can occupy depends on their capabilities. Coordinating the industries of these towns requires considering many aspects, such as the environment. Copper mining pollution is very serious. Then Areas with strong environmental carrying capacity can naturally be mined more, while areas with weak environmental carrying capacity should be mined less. ”
"There are also mining equipment. These equipment should also be used rationally to improve utilization efficiency and improve the safety of workers in the mining area."
After listening to De Berne's words, Mayor Bok also understood that according to De Berne's meaning, that is how much power he has and how much meat he can eat.
And as long as it is simply calculated, is there a more developed city in the entire copper mines? Obviously, it is the second largest city of Kitvi, and the gap between Lu Benbai is very huge.
Therefore, Mayor Polk immediately changed his face, and he said to Derbern cheerfully: "Or mayor of Debern, you have vision. The strong industrial zone such with the district can at least become one of the important industrial bases in the world. "
"Our Lu Benbai is happy to integrate the copper ore zone area. Each city in the region should let go of prejudice and cooperate sincerely, so that the entire area can improve the entire area and grow bigger and stronger."
"
In fact, Lubumbashi City has not had the idea of integrating the copper mining belt before, but other towns did not agree, and the biggest opponent of Lubumbashi is Kitwe City.
Now, the Kitwe Municipal Government has given up the idea of competing with Lubumbashi and is willing to "obey" Lubumbashi's arrangements, which is naturally welcomed by the Lubumbashi Municipal Government.
The change in Kitwe City's attitude is actually a helpless choice. After all, integrating the copper mining belt is more important to Kitwe City, but Kitwe City does not have such capabilities, so letting Lubumbashi complete this task would be counterproductive. is the best choice.
At present, the economic bottleneck in Kitwe City is more serious than that in Lubumbashi. After all, in addition to copper mines, Lubumbashi also has advantages in policy, geography, transportation, etc., so there are many retreats. Even if the copper mining belt declines, as a The development of Lubumbashi, the provincial capital of Swabia, is not far behind. This is unmatched by Kitwe, a prefecture-level city.
(End of chapter)