Chapter 1035 The Second Five-Year Plan

Of course, it is obviously impossible to be interested in East Africa just because they are both monarchies. The two countries also have many similarities in other aspects, such as centralized power, government-run enterprises, race, etc.

Throughout the world, East Africa's centralized power can be said to be unparalleled in the world, and this type of country is almost impossible to find in European and American countries.

The large number of government-run enterprises established by the Far Eastern Empire's Westernization Movement also have many similarities with East African state-owned enterprises, and they also have certain reference significance for the Far Eastern Empire's official model of setting up enterprises.

Now the Westernization Movement has failed in a sense, but supporters of the Westernization Movement can use East African enterprises as examples. Of course, the enterprises established by the Westernization Movement are definitely beneficial to the industry of the Far Eastern Empire. Its failure is mainly in politics. aspect.

In terms of race, East Africa is a mixed-race country, with Chinese immigrants accounting for a large part. This also refutes Western ethnography in a sense.

Of course, Western countries and the Far Eastern Empire think about issues from different standpoints and angles. The Western countries’ achievements in the development of East Africa are naturally attributed to European immigrants. After all, even the supreme rulers are European aristocrats, while the Far Eastern Empire believes that Chinese immigrants have contributed to the development of East Africa. They have made important contributions and played a huge role in East African society. For example, the person who is currently in charge of economic work in East Africa is a Chinese. This completely shows that the Chinese are not inferior to the Germans in the Far Eastern Empire.

If you ask Ernst this question, then naturally there is no difference between human races. At least there is currently no fundamental evidence to prove the differences between human races. Even the African natives who work as cattle and horses in East Africa, Ernst does not think that they are There is a problem with IQ.

Under the management of East Africa, these indigenous people can still work "diligently" like cattle and horses, making great contributions to the social construction of East Africa.

…

No matter what the outside world thinks of East Africa, the East African government still organizes national production and construction activities in an orderly manner. The First Five-Year Plan ended, and the goals of East Africa's Second Five-Year Plan were officially released in December 1905.

“The goal of my country’s steel industry during the Second Five-Year Plan is to reach at least 10 million tons. During the just-past First Five-Year Plan, my country’s steel production exceeded six million tons, an increase of nearly three million tons compared with before the First Five-Year Plan. , so the increase in my country’s steel industry during the Second Five-Year Plan should be no less than this number.”

“According to the steel sector plan in the Second Five-Year Plan, large-scale steel companies will be built in Cabinda and Kinshasa with the help of local and Belgian Congo iron ore resources, and new projects will be carried out in the provinces of Letania and Tete. A round of steel enterprise expansion will further increase the introduction of imported steel production and construction activities in coastal areas.”

The Congo province where Cabinda and Kinshasa are located includes the former Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa) and parts of Angola, and Congo (Brazzaville) has rich iron ore resources.

In the previous life, the territory of Congo-Brazzaville was divided between East Africa and Belgium, and Belgium's resource exploration work in the Belgian Congo was relatively complete in Africa.

This is easy to solve. In the previous life, the Belgian Congo covered an area of ​​more than two million square kilometers. However, in this time and space, the area of ​​the Belgian Congo has shrunk significantly. This has also allowed the Belgian government to maximize the use of the Belgian Congo.

Although France and Britain have a large number of colonies in Africa, their development and utilization of colonies is not necessarily as efficient as Belgium. After all, Britain and France have too many colonies, and Belgium can only concentrate on developing the Belgian Congo.

For an industrial power like Belgium, it is easy to develop the Belgian Congo, which covers an area of ​​only more than 200,000 square kilometers.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Belgium's population had reached more than six million, its industry was extremely developed, and its steel production reached more than 1.5 million tons, making it the fifth largest exporter in Europe. Belgium's Antwerp Port is one of the top ten ports in the world. .

Therefore, Belgium at the beginning of the 20th century was an extremely developed country. In terms of population size, it was about one-sixth that of France. Therefore, Belgium was fully capable of developing a small colony.

At present, many important mineral resources in the Belgian Congo have been discovered by Belgium. Among them, the tin ore, iron ore and potash salt in the Belgian Congo are relatively important to East Africa.

In 1902, Belgium discovered a high-quality large-scale iron ore in the southwest of the Belgian Congo, and carried out preliminary mining and exported it to East Africa, followed by Belgium or France.

This is also the reason why the East African government intends to invest in large-scale steel companies in Congo Province during the Second Five-Year Plan to further promote the development of the steel industry with the help of the rich iron ore resources there and in the Belgian Congo.

In the same way, with the rise of the chemical industry in East Africa, East Africa will also be determined to obtain the rich potassium salt resources in Congo in the future.

Potassium salt is an important raw material for chemical fertilizers and plays a huge role in promoting agriculture. However, the distribution of potassium salt resources in the world is extremely uneven.

The potash mine in the Belgian Congo is one of the largest potash deposits in the world. It has huge reserves. The potash reserves can reach tens of billions of tons. It was an important source of supply for the global potash fertilizer market in the past.

This potash deposit is mainly distributed on the west coast of Africa, the Belgian colonies and East Africa. It is likely to be one of the largest potash resources in East Africa.

Therefore, in addition to the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Agriculture also attaches great importance to Congo's potash resources. With the transformation of agricultural development in East Africa, the current demand for chemical fertilizers and pesticides in East African agriculture continues to grow.

"During the First Five-Year Plan, my country has initially transformed some of the original large-scale steel production enterprises, but there are still a large number of local steel enterprises that have not yet completed the technology and equipment update. During the Second Five-Year Plan, it is an important goal of the steel industry to upgrade these backward steel enterprises."

"At the same time, increasing the survey of coal and iron ore resources in the west and north is also the main task during the Second Five-Year Plan."

The main minerals in East Africa are distributed in the central and southern parts, and the west and east are not bad. The north has always been a region with relatively scarce mineral resources in East Africa, especially in the steel industry. Therefore, the survey of coal and iron ore resources in the north is a work that the steel department attaches great importance to during the Second Five-Year Plan.

The main reason is that the economy in the north is too weak. In the past few decades, other territories in East Africa have basically been in a stage of rapid development, while the economic and industrial development in the north has been relatively slow, which is severely restricted by resources.

So during the Second Five-Year Plan, in order to narrow the gap in industrial development between regions, the East African government will take care of the northern region.

"During the Second Five-Year Plan, further increasing the import volume of foreign steel raw materials is one of the important features of the development of the steel industry, including importing some coal and iron ore from India, Belgium, South America and other regions."

Purchasing foreign raw materials for steel production will undoubtedly increase production costs in the current industrialization stage, and the main reason why East Africa does this is to increase trade with other regions.

With the completion of the First Five-Year Plan, East Africa's industrial production has also been further improved, but the stock of foreign markets is limited. If East Africa wants to promote the export of its own industrial products, it must pay a certain price. After all, other countries cannot let East Africa make all the money. Therefore, out of "trade fairness" considerations, East Africa must also introduce some "equivalent" goods from relevant trading countries or regions.

The export of industrial products to backward regions and countries naturally corresponds to the import of raw materials, so the reflection of the East African steel industry is to increase the import volume of foreign coal and iron ore.