Chapter 1214 Fourth Five-Year Plan
East Africa's economic performance from 1910 to 1915 was not inferior to that of the previous ten years. During the first two five-year plans, East Africa had decades of accumulation, which was a solid accumulation, while the Third Five-Year Plan caught up. A good period of historical opportunity.
With the arrival of 1916, East Africa's "Fourth Five-Year Plan" was officially released and implemented, and some problems encountered in East Africa after the launch of the new economic policy were targeted.
The Fourth Five-Year Plan has the characteristics of a non-comprehensive plan and has a completely different meaning. To a certain extent, it reflects the transformation of the economic functions of the East African government.
Due to the implementation of the New Economic Policy in East Africa, plans and markets developed in parallel during the Third Five-Year Plan period. There is no doubt that this sudden turn in the economic field has a huge impact on the country's economy.
However, taking advantage of the historical opportunity of World War I, the Third Five-Year Plan still had a smooth and soft landing. However, this does not mean that the problems it exposed should be chosen to turn a blind eye because of economic prosperity.
In particular, the lack of macro-control measures for the free market has led to the wild growth of the free market in East Africa and exposed a large number of social and economic problems.
Therefore, the change of the five-year plan into a five-year plan means a major change in the governance model of the East African government in the economic field.
In Ernst’s words: “Taking into account the unified and coordinated development of planning and the market, while giving full play to the dual advantages of the government and the market, is an important feature of the future economic development of East Africa.”
Compared with the Third Five-Year Plan, the main focus of the Fourth Five-Year Plan is not only changes in ideological core guidelines, but also its guiding significance for the development of the national economy.
In the era of completely planned economy, the East African government was an all-powerful patriarch who could "manage everything". But now it mainly focuses on guidance, guidance and other functions, and even added the content of "service".
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Rhine city.
After the Fourth Five-Year Plan began, the East African government entered a busy stage again. Coupled with the window period of World War I, the work intensity of the East African government reached a higher level.
Ernst: "At the current stage, the eastern, central and western parts of our country have made brilliant achievements in construction, forming the economic core of the middle zone with the central railway line as the main axis."
"However, we cannot ignore the economic development of other regions across the country. Therefore, during the Fourth Five-Year Plan period, the government will focus on the Great Lakes region and the southern region to develop regional economies and build a new economic map of East Africa."
The Great Lakes region and the Southern region can be said to be the regions with the best agricultural and industrial basic conditions in East Africa respectively.
The Great Lakes region has a large area of arable land, excellent rain and heat conditions, and relatively flat terrain. It has always been the most important farming area in East Africa.
As for the south, what is basically worth mentioning is South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and other regions in the previous life. Here are the richest mineral resources in East Africa, but in the past, except for the coast, they have not been fully utilized and developed.
In fact, if East Africa had chosen the southern region for development and construction in the early days, it would undoubtedly have greatly saved industrial and economic development costs.
"The Great Lakes region is the reservoir of imperial agriculture and is responsible for the important task of national agricultural development. In the past few decades, it has always been the most important region for our country's agriculture and the 'iron rice bowl' for all citizens. However, the economy must be fully coordinated For development, the Great Lakes region cannot rely on agriculture alone.”
“So during the Fourth Five-Year Plan period, developing the Great Lakes region is an important task for the government, especially the development of Kampala, Kisumu and other cities along the lake.”
"With the Great Lakes region as the core, we will create a new economic pole in East Africa and drive the high-quality and high-speed development of the northern economy."
Ernst continued: "Create a lakeside economic belt around the Great Lakes area, make full use of the water transportation advantages of the Great Lakes, and achieve material deployment."
The advantages of the Great Lakes Region are obvious. It is home to the largest lake in East Africa and has very developed water transportation. Coupled with the East African National Canal Plan and the construction of railways and roads, it can be said that the Great Lakes Region has become an important inland transportation hub in East Africa. In particular, resources such as grain, rubber, timber, and minerals in the Great Lakes region used to be transported by water first and then shipped to other parts of the country or the world via rail or road.
As for the shortcomings of the Great Lakes Region, it is probably mineral resources. However, this does not mean that the Great Lakes Region is not rich in mineral resources, but it lacks basic resources for early industrial development, such as iron ore and coal mines.
The mineral resources in the Great Lakes region are mainly characterized by many types and wide distribution. For example, in the previous life of Uganda, there were more than 50 proven mineral resources, including oil, mica, feldspar, limestone, phosphate, iron, vermiculite, Tantalum, vanadium, copper, cobalt, tungsten and more.
This is just a region in Uganda. It can be imagined that the Great Lakes region has a rich variety of resources, but if you want to use these resources, you must have a certain industrial base.
In the early days of East Africa, the Great Lakes region has always been the largest gold production area in East Africa, and the relatively scarce tungsten mineral resources in East Africa were mainly located there and in Hesse Province.
There is no doubt that the Great Lakes region made a great contribution to the early development of East Africa, because it is the most important agricultural region in East Africa and the first place where gold mines were developed in East Africa. It provided a large amount of funds for the early industrial development of East Africa.
"The general idea for industrial development in the Great Lakes region is to first complete construction projects such as the Imperial Dam and port reconstruction, then move out residents in the flooded areas, reintegrate local resources, and form an economic and industrial zone surrounding the Great Lakes region, focusing on the development of shipping, metals Smelting, fishing, electric power and other industries.”
Of course, there is no need to say much about the shipping industry. The Great Lakes region is vast and has always been the most developed area for inland water transport in East Africa.
Metal smelting naturally takes advantage of the rich metal mineral resources in the Great Lakes region, which is also one of the regions with the richest fishery resources in East Africa. As for power energy, this involves the excellent hydropower resource potential of the Great Lakes region.
This is deeply related to the climate and terrain of the Great Lakes Region.
The Great Lake was also Lake Victoria in its previous life. Judging from the map, the Great Lake is actually a huge lake located in the middle of the Great Rift Valley in East Africa.
This results in the Great Lakes region being dotted with mountains in the east and west directions, while the north and south directions are relatively flat. The rivers originating from these mountains are also the main source of water in the Great Lakes region.
The Great Lakes region is an important rainy area in East Africa, close to the Congo Basin. Although its rainfall is slightly inferior to that of the Congo rainforest, it is still very abundant.
The most difficult thing is that the seasonal distribution of precipitation in the Great Lakes region is very even, and it is generally humid and rainy, which further enhances the potential for local hydropower resource development.
Therefore, the East African government's plan is to make full use of the local terrain and climate to build a number of hydroelectric power stations to provide a large amount of cheap electricity to the Great Lakes region and eastern and northern East Africa.
The industrial and economic development of the Great Lakes region will undoubtedly strongly drive the economic development of northern East Africa.
In fact, the Great Lakes region belongs to the eastern region in the geographical definition of East Africa, but its geographical location is close to northern East Africa, and it is also the most suitable place for large-scale development in the north of East Africa at this stage.
This is very important. In the past, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and other regions around the Great Lakes region were all places with relatively good economic development in Africa.
And if you look further north, South Sudan, Central Africa, Somalia and the like are basically considered to have no lower limit in the African region.
Although under the rule of East Africa, these regions must have been very different from their previous lives, there is no doubt that under the same conditions, the development of the Great Lakes region will definitely be smoother than that of other northern regions.
In fact, northern East Africa also occupied places such as Chad, Sudan, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, and Ethiopia in its previous life.
Either the area is too small, the climate is harsh, or the terrain is too complex. For example, in the areas occupied by East Africa in the former Sudan, except for the small plains of Jezira, which have farming conditions, most of the rest are deserts with scarce water resources, and the areas occupied by East Africa Ethiopia is surrounded by mountains and is difficult to develop, while Cameroon and Gabon are covered with dense rainforests.
(End of chapter)