Chapter 997: The Foundation of Industry

Of course, the premise is that the Ottoman Empire joins the German side as in the previous life. In this way, in addition to the Suez Canal, East Africa can directly use the Persian Gulf and then transport materials to Germany and Austria-Hungary through the Baghdad Railway.

After all, the Suez Canal has certain risks under the control of the British, but even so, East Africa has a greater advantage than the United States, because the United States only has one route to choose from, the Atlantic Ocean, while East Africa has three trade routes. To be more extreme, East Africa can open up a land trade route from the Sahara to the Mediterranean coast, but it is too difficult and does not have a cost advantage.

Of course, the premise of all this is that history develops according to the original trajectory, East Africa's industry develops, and there is a strong navy to guarantee East Africa's economic interests.

The basic guarantee for the United States to win both ends in the war in the previous life is the relatively strong naval strength of the United States, otherwise the British and French navies are fully capable of cutting off the trade between the United States and the Allies.

It should be known that after the end of World War I, the total tonnage of the US Navy was close to half of that of the British Navy, with a total tonnage of nearly 500,000 tons. In the early and middle stages of World War I, the United States maintained its neutral status and did not participate in the war. Therefore, in World War I, the fundamental guarantee for the United States to win both ends was its strong naval strength.

This is of great reference value to Ernst, so before the full-scale war in Europe, the strength of the East African army should also be greatly expanded and improved.

However, this does not interfere with the development policy of the East African economy during the First Five-Year Plan. The First Five-Year Plan of East Africa is completely different from that of the Soviet Union in the past. The primary goal of the First Five-Year Plan and the Second Five-Year Plan of the Soviet Union is to develop national defense industry and heavy industry.

The First Five-Year Plan of East Africa is relatively balanced, with heavy industry as the main focus, but at the same time, it vigorously develops light industry and agriculture. Although it tends to be heavy industry, light industry and agriculture also occupy a certain share, unlike the first two five-year plans of the Soviet Union, which are top-heavy.

The reason for this situation lies in the differences in the national conditions and geopolitics of the two countries. The Soviet Union is facing a serious external crisis, and because of the poor geopolitical environment, it is always facing the risk of joint armed intervention by European countries.

This forced the Soviet Union to solve the natural security problem first, and this forced choice also laid the hidden danger for the imbalance of the Soviet Union's industrial structure later. Therefore, the Soviet Union's economic development path was very difficult, and various crises also led to the Soviet Union's inability to compete with the United States in the bipolar structure.

On the other hand, East Africa is completely different. East Africa's geopolitics is very safe, and it is not far from the main trade routes between Asia and Europe, and the sea routes are unobstructed. These are the most basic favorable conditions for East Africa's economic development.

In the First Five-Year Plan, the reason why East Africa continued to focus on heavy industry as the development center is related to the current national conditions of East Africa. The industrial level of East Africa is far behind that of European and American countries, which makes East Africa's industrial output value seriously insufficient.

As the most basic industry, heavy industry can be called the foundation of industrial development. This can be seen from the definition of heavy industry. Heavy industry is the main means of production that provides material and technical foundations for various sectors of the national economy.

Only with heavy industry as a foundation can there be a foundation for the development of light industry. Taking the first industrial development as an example, the development of steel and coal industries is the most important driving force for the development of the British textile industry. Steel provides raw materials for textile machinery manufacturing, while promoting the development of railways and shipbuilding, promoting transportation development, and facilitating the export of British textile industry. Coal is the main power source for light industries such as textile industry.

So theoretically, the development of light industry cannot be separated from heavy industry. Light industry without heavy industry is rootless and difficult to maintain.

So for East Africa, whether it is steel, coal, oil, electricity, chemical industry and other basic industries, they are the main goals and trends for promoting industrial development during the First Five-Year Plan, especially the two major industries of steel and coal. East Africa has a huge gap with the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom. After the completion of the First Five-Year Plan, the strength of these two basic industrial fields in East Africa will be greatly improved, especially narrowing the gap with the United Kingdom.

And the development of these basic industries can provide raw materials and means of production for the development of light industry and agriculture in East Africa. For the current East Africa, with the development of heavy industry, light industry and agriculture will naturally develop.

Simply put, during the First Five-Year Plan in East Africa, the most important thing is to explode the capacity of basic industries and provide the most basic raw materials for the economic development of East Africa, and these raw materials will be invested in the construction of infrastructure, urban construction, transportation, etc. in East Africa.

So Ernst said to the government officials: "In the construction of the west, we will build a new comprehensive industrial base in East Africa in the west coast provinces to promote the development of local light and heavy industries. This is completely different from our past construction experience."

"In the past, East Africa tended to build agricultural construction, which was determined by the national conditions at that time. At that time, East Africa lacked funds, technology and talents, so we could only start from the most basic agriculture. Now we have gathered all the necessary elements for the development of the above industries. This is also the main reason for our transition from agriculture to industry in the 1990s."

"Of course, the gap between us and European countries is still large, so at this stage, focusing on the development of basic industries, that is, heavy industry is the only way for us in East Africa."

"After the heavy industry develops, we can develop other industries based on it. This is one of the important paths for the current development of the world economy. In fact, it is also a feature of the development of German industry in the last century."

"In the last century, Germany's industrial development started with steel, coal and railways, and then surpassed Britain and France in many fields to become the world's third largest industrial country. Due to historical reasons, East Africa cannot achieve this in just a few years."

"We can only accelerate this process through administrative and planning means, and my expectation is that East Africa's overall industrial level will at least exceed Russia after at least two five-year plans are completed."

At present, Russia, which is known as the fifth industrial country in the world, should be ranked between France and East Africa, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire has come to the seventh in the world.

Of course, in the recognized industrial strength ranking of countries around the world (except East African governments), East Africa actually ranks seventh, and is still behind the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The order is the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Austria, and East Africa.

However, according to East Africa's own understanding of its own industry, East Africa's industrial strength and scale should actually have surpassed France, but the overall industrial output value of East Africa is relatively low, and one of the important reasons is that heavy industry accounts for a large proportion.

If the output value factor is excluded, the ranking of industrial scale of various countries is the United States, Germany, Britain, Russia, East Africa, France, Austria, and Russia can rank fourth in the world, thanks to its huge population. In this case, although the industrial level of East Africa is higher than that of Russia, it cannot make up for the gap of tens of millions of people with Russia in a short time.

France's industrial output value is higher than that of East Africa, but in the field of basic industry, France is obviously impossible to surpass East Africa, because France lacks raw materials for industrial development among the great powers, which makes the French industrial development funds flow to light industry and high-profit industry.

So if France and East Africa explode, East Africa is likely to surpass France, not only in terms of military sources, but also in the field of defense industry. However, the development focus of East Africa is not military industry, so East Africa is not as strong as France in terms of naval and land forces at the current stage.

This is obviously not good news for France, because France has been involved in a lot of energy by Germany, and it must maintain a relatively large army scale, which is bound to have a certain negative impact on its economy.