Chapter 1393 World Economic Recovery
In fact, in Ernst's previous life, there was a Southeast African Common Market organization in Africa, with its full name as the Eastern and Southern African Common Markets. The Secretariat is located in Lusa, the capital of Zambia. Card.
The reason why this regional organization led by East Africa is still called the Southeast African Common Market is closely related to the current political territory pattern of the African continent.
East Africa is a country that is too unique, occupying a small half of Africa's area, and its territory occupies a large area of land in eastern and southern Africa.
So it is most appropriate to use Southeast Africa to cover these countries outside East Africa.
Neither the East African Common Market nor the South African Common Market can achieve this effect.
Take the East African Common Market as an example, let alone the traditional method of addressing the Rhine Empire in the international community, which does not reflect internationality and can easily cause ambiguity.
Moreover, from the current geography of Africa, the eastern part of Africa in a narrow sense is basically located in East Africa, and there are only a few colonial islands in the Indian Ocean, the eastern part of South African colonies, and the eastern part of North Africa are slightly related to East Africa.
For example, Egypt is a country where it is located, it can be called "Northeast Africa". It is in the northeast corner of the African continent, so it is far-fetched to summarize Egypt into the eastern part of Africa.
Moreover, from the perspective of Egypt's cultural, historical and religious attributes, the world prefers to summarize Egypt into the large geographical concept of North Africa. Of course, North Africa here refers to Africa in the northern part of the Sahara Desert, corresponding to It is the concept of sub-Saharan Africa, and North Africa can also be regarded as a desert or an area that influences Arab culture.
Therefore, in order to summarize neighboring countries in East Africa into a system, only the concept of Southeast African Common Market is the most suitable.
In fact, the Southeast African common market in previous lives was not limited to South Africa and East African countries, such as Libya, a typical North African country, is also a member state.
In the view of the East African government, the Southeast African Common Market is just a regional international organization with preliminary attempts and transitions. In the future, it is entirely possible to become a "AU" and "Non-Economic Union" and other integrations. A powerful international organization throughout most of Africa.
At present, the colonial forces of Europe and the United States on the entire African continent are still relatively strong, so East Africa can only try the "Southeast African Common Market" first.
The East African Government then held a heated discussion on the organization's framework and participating countries, but the two countries that were most controversial were Italy and Belgium.
Although Spain has a higher status than these two countries, Spanish Guinea does not have much value or presence, so the Spanish government does not pay much attention to it.
After a month of discussion, the Southeast African Common Market Organization was officially established, a relatively fair economic cooperation organization. At least in the early 20th century, this economic cooperation organization is progressive. of.
The headquarters of the economic organization is undoubtedly located in Rhine, the capital of East Africa, while some functional departments such as the Development Bank and the Court of Arbitration are located in some cities in the northeastern East Africa to facilitate transportation between member states .
In the future, as the organization grows and expands its influence, some important functions may be transferred to the northwest.
…
At the time of the Southeast African Common Market Organization Conference, new changes also occurred around the world's economic trends.
Although international competition is becoming increasingly fierce, due to the end of World War I, the overall world situation has returned to the mainstream of peaceful development.
Under normal circumstances, after experiencing World War I and when the war just ended, a wave of post-war reconstruction should usher in a wave of post-war reconstruction, thereby stimulating the recovery of the world economy.
However, due to the sudden outbreak, until early 1922, the world economy was in a depression and showed no signs of improvement.
However, now the epidemic is over, coupled with the overall world peace situation and the re-engineering of post-war reconstruction in Europe, and East Africa and the United States are also going to digest the spoils of World War I.
So in mid-1922, East Africa's half-dead economy finally saw the dawn, market confidence recovered, investment activities came out of a low point, and the national economy showed vitality again, which made the East African government breathe a sigh of relief.
However, compared with East Africa, the economic recovery process in North America and Western Europe has come more rapidly.
The reason why East Africa's economic recovery response is slower than Europe and the United States is that during this period, East Africa's economic transformation has been carried out, and it is naturally difficult to achieve results in a short period of time.
A typical example is that in early 1922, the steel industry in Europe and the United States not only returned to pre-war levels, but also began to strike towards higher production capacity.
The steel production of the United States and Germany had already returned to its peak at the end of 1921, and by the beginning of 1922, it made rapid progress.
The United States gained more world markets in World War I, while Germany created a large amount of market demand because of post-war reconstruction work.
The situation in Europe and the United States is naturally seen by the East African government.
Rhine Palace.
Crown Prince Friedrich, who had just sent away representatives from various countries, started other work constantly, and the current economic situation was also sent to Crown Prince Friedrich by Ernst.
Enster looked at his son who grew up quickly and was able to take on the role of the tyrant, and he felt very relieved: "Friedrich, you have performed very well in the past few months, and overall the government work handling It's not satisfactory, so I'll add a burden to you and accumulate more work experience."
"This is a recent economic report. You can take it over and take a look, and then talk about your views and opinions."
"Yes, father!" Friedrich from Ernst After taking a slightly thicker document, I sat on a chair and started reading it.
Through these information, Friedrich's brows frowned involuntarily.
Although these data cannot be too accurate because they involve other countries, they also have great reference value.
Through these data and comparing the domestic economic data in East Africa, one thing can be reflected, that is, the economic recovery process of East Africa is slower than that of European and American countries.
After a long time, Friedrich finally finished reading all the information, while Ernst sat aside and waited patiently for Friedrich to speak. "Father, through the materials from these statistical departments, we can see that the world economy is generally in a recovery stage. Since the end of the war, the economic depression that lasted nearly two years has finally bottomed out and rebounded." "However, due to various factors, the economic trends may be somewhat different in different regions of the world, such as my country's current economic growth rate is slightly lower than that of the United States or Western Europe."
" There are even some regions in the world where the economy has fallen into a state of decline instead of increasing, but the overall impact is not great." Ernst asked: "Then what do you think about the current economic development speed of East Africa is not as fast as that of Europe and the United States. , This is the case? ”
Friedrich replied confidently: "Although the domestic economic development expectations are not as good as those of European and American countries, I do not think this is a completely bad thing."
"Because our East Africa is now in economic transformation, with a large number of Funds are invested in R&D, support from high-end and emerging industries, and this process is slow and difficult to achieve results. "
"For example, in the past two years, my country's steel industry has been in order to carry out industrial production and adjustments. , shut down and eliminate some inefficiency Or enterprises with outdated production equipment. "
"At the same time, stricter standards have been set for the development of the steel industry, and the entry threshold for the steel industry has been raised, which has led to a decline in my country's steel production instead of increasing, and more It is an important steel producer such as the United States and Germany in terms of growth rate. "
Since 1910, the pattern of the East African steel industry has undergone major changes, that is, in the past, it was completely monopolized by the East African government and changed to allow it. Private investment and construction of steel enterprises.
However, because of the low income level of East African citizens in the early stages of the opening market, the weak private capital of this country has made private steel enterprises generally mainly small steel enterprises with low technical content and relatively small scale.
After more than ten years of development, these private steel enterprises have formed a number of steel production enterprises of a certain scale through fierce competition and mergers by 1920, although they are still unable to get along with large state-owned steel enterprises in East Africa. Compared, but compared with some local companies, it is not at all disadvantages.
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Private steel enterprises are also an important reason for the rapid expansion of East Africa's steel production during World War I. Although they were generally not large at that time, they were of large numbers, so they were concentrated together and the overall output was enough to match. The steel market in East Africa has formed a certain influence.
In fact, during World War I, private steel enterprises in East Africa had accumulated a certain amount of capital after several years of wild growth, and even took over some local steel industry enterprises with poor operating conditions.
By the end of the World War I, the proportion of the national population in East Africa's steel industry had reached nearly the level of June 4th.
This is mainly because the production capacity of large state-owned steel enterprises in East Africa is too amazing. A single steel enterprise can reach a steel production capacity of 100,000, hundreds of thousands or even millions. This large steel production enterprise invests It is huge, and only the East African government has the ability to invest.
After the 55th Five-Year Plan period, the development of the East African steel field was affected by policies and turned to high-quality development, relevant laws and measures were introduced to raise the threshold for steel industry enterprises and promote the elimination of backward production capacity.
This will undoubtedly suppress the short-term development of the East African steel industry. For example, some steel plants may not pass the government review due to equipment conditions, operating conditions, related measures and other adverse factors, so they will stop work and production, and may even be directly collapse.
In this way, the overall steel production capacity will naturally not increase significantly, but will decline significantly in the early stage.
Friedrich said in response to this point: "From the current development of the international market, the world's steel production capacity has been in an explosive period in recent years."
"The steel production in European countries has resumed, The steel production capacity of countries such as the Empire and the United States grew wildly during World War I, and even many backward countries and regions invested in and built many steel production enterprises during World War I. "
"So in the past few years, the whole world has Steel production has increased significantly compared to pre-war, but this growth is also unhealthy."
< "The increasingly fierce competition has led to a continuous decline in international steel prices, and some steel companies even operate at a loss. This is not a good phenomenon."
"However, except for our East Africa, there are few countries in the world Realizing this, their steel production enterprises still expand their production capacity without any scruples due to market inertia or other factors, which makes them easily fall into a vicious cycle. The more they produce, the lower the price of steel, and eventually they will even be It triggers a break in the capital chain, which leads to a large number of bankruptcies in steel companies."
"Especially some backward countries and regions, due to political, national defense and other considerations, they have expanded steel production without restrictions. If they cannot grasp the degree of it well, they may be subject to a backlash."
Backing countries and regions The steel production enterprises are definitely not as good as industrial countries like East Africa in terms of capital, technology, talents, etc., but for the needs of national development, they have to support the development of the steel industry, which can easily lead to empty production capacity. Overall production efficiency is low and product quality cannot compete with the international market.
If it is not handled well, it is easy to backfire. Of course, there is no solution to this. After all, the development of steel enterprises is a process from nothing to something, from weak to strong.
Industrial countries like East Africa have also experienced the development of the steel industry. At that time, the steel industry in East Africa was not much different from the problems faced by the steel industry in the current backward countries and regions.
The solution to East Africa is also very simple and crude, that is, to close the country, produce and sell it by itself. By closing the country, protecting its own market, the weak East African steel industry at that time was not strangled in the cradle by foreign steel giants.
Self-production and self-sales are based on protecting the domestic market. In addition, the large-scale implementation of infrastructure construction in East Africa in the last century also created a large number of market demand, which played a positive role in the domestic steel industry.
However, these methods can be used in East Africa do not mean that other countries can do it. One of the most important points is that the backward countries and regions in the world today do not even have the right to develop independently.
For example, as a British colony, whether India can vigorously develop the steel industry is entirely a matter of London. Indians do not have the autonomy to decide on their own industrial development.
So, for some countries, if they want to develop their own industries, the premise is to be independent and control their own destiny.
Although East Africa was a country developed by a colony, it has been independent since the colonial era. In the colonial era, there was no sect leader at all, but the Rhine royal family, which was the black one at that time. The colonial activities promoted by the Xinggen royal family, and the Rhine royal family has always regarded East Africa as the base for development.
Friedrich said: "So, in the current situation of blind development of the world's steel industry, our steel industry upgrade and transformation in East Africa has indeed suppressed the increase in output in the short term, but in the long run, it is more conducive to the country's steel industry. Development. "
Once the upgrade and transformation of East Africa's steel industry is completed, then the East Africa steel industry with higher production efficiency, lower overall costs and better product quality will be more competitive and at the same time, confronting the market The ability to risk and economic crisis is also stronger.
However, it will take time to achieve this, especially when the East Africa Five-Five Plan is postponed due to the impact of the epidemic, it is estimated that the steel industry will be completely upgraded and transformed, and it will take until 1924 After the year.
In the period of time, the steel production capacity of European and American countries should still be in a state of large-scale increase, which is reflected in other industrial production fields, and the same is true.
So Friedrich concluded: "Since we know that the truth we are following is correct, we should unswervingly implement it. For some rumors, we will naturally not attack them once the time comes. The situation is always within a controllable range. Although the economic recovery in East Africa is slower than that of Western Europe and North America, it is also higher than that of other parts of the world, which means that some small problems will not affect the overall development of the country." br>
(This chapter ends)