Chapter 1147 Trade Prosperity
There are many East African companies like Carson Department Store that are planning to enter the Congolese market. Many companies in Cabinda and Kinshasa are involved, and even companies and companies in further cities such as Luanda, Lobito, and Benguela are involved. Capital has also stepped in.
This will obviously cause a stir in the small Belgian Congo. In the end, it depends on who is more skilled and becomes the final winner.
Of course, the Belgian Congo can only be blamed on the colonial market with a population of several hundred thousand. There are several cities in East Africa whose population exceeds the population of the Belgian Congo. Therefore, the competition in the Belgian Congo is just a small matter for the East African government.
Nowadays, Europe is the most important global market in East Africa. In addition, many places in Asia, Africa and Latin America are also not bad. Compared with it, Belgium's Congo colonial market can only be regarded as one of the appetizers.
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Rhine city.
The transportation sector in East Africa can be said to have been very busy recently, with railways, roads, waterways and maritime transport being fully developed.
A steady stream of supplies was imported from the interior of East Africa to the coastal areas, and then transported to Europe and other regions through the ports of East Africa, and finally returned to East Africa in a hurry.
The demand from Europe alone has already made the East African government feel overwhelmed, not to mention that East Africa not only has to take care of Europe, but also takes into account the huge ambitions of many markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
John Learhui, Director of the Maritime Administration of East Africa, reported: "Currently, the total tonnage of my country's registered merchant ships has exceeded five million tons, of which more than three million tons are responsible for cargo transportation in the European market. At the same time, merchant ships from Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire are also providing services for us. Services, including other countries, there are approximately 130,000 tons of merchant ships in the world directly or indirectly serving our country’s trade.”
Starting from the Third Five-Year Plan, the civilian shipbuilding industry in East Africa can be said to have been operating at full capacity to produce ocean-going ships, abruptly increasing the total tonnage of East African merchant ships from more than three million tons to more than five million tons.
This also benefited from the influence of the reconciliation treaty between East Africa and the United Kingdom at that time. In the first year of the reconciliation between the two countries, East Africa did follow the British arrangements and did not make much naval action. This allowed East Africa to concentrate on expanding the civilian shipbuilding industry at that time.
"Currently, the volume of trade between us and the German region is huge. It can be said that a large number of merchant ships in the German region are serving between us and the German region. Our domestic merchant ships, as a third country, assume the main tasks."
Currently, about 7 million tons of commercial ships in the three German countries serve between East Africa and the German region. This scale can be said to be very large.
After all, the total number of registered merchant ships in the three German countries, namely Germany, East Africa and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is just over 10 million tons. East Africa ranks first, Germany ranks second, and Austria-Hungary ranks last. Almost most of Germany’s merchant ships are Running business in East Africa.
The main reason was that under the intimidation of Britain, Russia and France, many European countries were forced to restrict trade with Germany.
Take wheat for example. Although Germany is barely self-sufficient in food, this is when it includes wheat, barley, potatoes and other food crops.
As for wheat, one of Germany's important food rations, Germany's self-sufficiency rate before the war was only 80%, and there was a 20% shortfall that needed to be imported from other countries every year.
A large part of this 20% gap comes from Tsarist Russia, but now Russia has cut off trade with Germany.
The area of wheat-producing areas in East Africa is not small. In recent years, the application of water conservancy facilities and agricultural technology has enabled East Africa to harvest more than two wheat crops a year, and the unit yield has also been greatly increased, which can fully meet the needs of Germany.
Germany needs to import even staple food such as wheat, and there is naturally a huge gap in other non-food crops such as meat, eggs, milk, fruits and vegetables. Both warring parties often have millions of troops. In this case, a large number of labor force people are thrown into the battlefield. On the contrary, there will naturally be a large gap in the agricultural and industrial population, and the consumption of the army is significantly higher than usual, so Germany's wheat imports must be higher than before the war. High, according to estimates by the East African government, it should be around 30%.
Fortunately, although wheat is an important food crop for the Germans, it is not the only option. Napoleon relied on potatoes from European farmers to support his army.
Of course, as the main raw material of bread, wheat is an important guarantee for the combat effectiveness of the army. Wheat must give priority to ensuring the supply of the army. This is also the main reason why Germany urgently needs to import large amounts of wheat from East Africa.
After all, in this era, Europeans' pursuit of bread is basically equated with the quality of life. A certain World War II madman used bread as a slogan when he came to power, and the Soviet Union even used black bread as an important guarantee of the Soviet army's combat effectiveness on the front line. Even because of food shortages, they had no choice but to Add sawdust to increase satiety. The collapse of the Russian government in World War I was also the slogan of the people who wanted bread, not war.
John Lear continued: "The pressure on port operations across the country is relatively high. In recent years, we have built and renovated more than 20 modern container ports. However, there is no shortage of related facilities in Europe, which adds trouble to cargo dispatch."
Containers are also a major killer of East Africa's transportation industry. Starting in 1908, East Africa began to promote the promotion of unified standard containers in national cargo transportation.
Further strengthening the intermodal transport between railways, roads and sea routes requires the upgrading and transformation of existing ports in East Africa. After all, although containers are convenient, large equipment is also required to hoist them.
Nowadays, the major ports in East Africa have basically achieved this goal, but the situation is different in countries outside East Africa. For example, in Germany, some small ports do not have large-scale equipment to load and unload containers at all. However, this is not something that East Africa should consider. East Africa only needs to transport goods. Just arrive.
One of the major advantages of containers is the convenience of railway transportation. Many materials can be transported directly to the front line through the railway in the port area, so Germany is quite satisfied with containers.
In the early days of the war, many exported military supplies from East Africa were delivered directly to the front lines in boxes to meet the needs of the German army, such as medicines, medical cotton, etc.
At this point, the German army is still very satisfied with East African products. Not only are they large in quantity, but the quality is also quite high. This is inevitable. East Africa did not just shoddy products because of the sudden outbreak of war. After all, Ernst wanted to do this for this purpose. Preparations for the war had begun long ago.
On the other hand, the United States is different. American companies were not prepared. When the war suddenly broke out, many American companies had no time to produce after receiving orders, so the quality of many battlefield products was worrying.
As a result, the warring countries in Europe are now choosing East Africa for some important military supplies, especially medical products. This is something that affects the life and death of soldiers and cannot be sloppily tolerated.
The "black heart cotton" in the United States and the "medical cotton" produced in East Africa for battlefield use only require simple feedback from the front line. Under normal circumstances, the procurement departments in the rear of each country should know how to choose.
All in all, in the early days of the war, in the commercial competition between East Africa and the United States, East Africa gained the first mover advantage, while American companies had not even rolled out production lines and could only watch a large amount of money flow into the pockets of East Africans.
Of course, the United States will definitely be able to fill these gaps later. However, the European market was the most profitable during World War I, but markets outside Europe are equally important. By the time the United States achieves success in Europe, East Africa will also gain advantages in other regions. The so-called slow step, slow step.
Although the United States was the world's largest economy before the war, East Africa is now not much inferior to the United States, especially in the industrial field. East Africa and the United States are already at the same level, surpassing Germany.
This can be reflected most intuitively from the steel production. Currently, the steel production in East Africa has reached more than 30 million tons. However, due to the pre-war economic crisis, the United States has only just recovered to just over 30 million tons even with the temporary expansion of production. , in terms of steel production alone, East Africa has become the world's largest steel producer.
The steel output of East Africa and the United States is more than 30 million tons, while Germany, which ranks third, only has 13 million tons, less than half of that of East Africa and the United States, and other countries cannot compare with the three countries.
(End of chapter)