African Entrepreneurship Record

East Africa’s actions in the Mindanao Island reflect its determination towards maritime exploration. Correspondingly, in 1897, East Africa established 27 new large shipbuilding and repair enterprises. With territorial expansion, the number of available ports in East Africa also increased significantly, including both domestic and overseas colonial ports, mainly in the south and west domestically.

Meanwhile, the expansion of territories concurrently extended the inland waterway mileage in East Africa, with inland ports growing rapidly, especially under East Africa’s ambitious ”East African Grand Canal” plan, further broadening the prospects of inland shipping.

Additionally, overseas territories such as the Lan Fang Overseas Province, the Southern Ryukyu Islands, North Hawaiian Kingdom, Balabac Island, and the Mindanao Island provided numerous excellent ports for East Africa’s long-distance maritime strategy.

Among them, Balabac Island’s important role emerged with East Africa’s annexation of the Mindanao Island, serving as a link between the Mindanao Colony and the Lan Fang Overseas Province.

”Currently, we have identified and invested in the construction of 25 key domestic ports, mainly concentrated in the east, with fewer in the west. However, each developed port has excellent conditions, and the cities where these 25 ports are located correspond to economically developed coastal areas,” Ernst said to government officials.

Although the East African coastline is relatively straight and lacks excellent harbors, the number of already constructed and utilized seaports exceeds more than forty, which primarily handle East Africa’s national foreign trade, with 25 of them being the most significant.

In contrast, there are significantly more inland water transport ports, with East Africa’s inland ports exceeding over two hundred, highlighting the remarkable difference between the two, and this disparity is expected to widen further with the development of the inland economy.

The Great Lakes Region alone has over sixty ports, primarily distributed along Lake Victoria and the rivers flowing into it.

Secondly, the basins of Lake Malawi and Soron Lake (Lake Tanganyika) are the most developed areas for inland shipping in East Africa, accounting for more than fifty percent of the inland shipping operations.

Of course, although the number of inland ports far exceeds seaports, their values are evidently not equal. It is no exaggeration to say that the importance of a seaport for foreign communication is greater than ten inland ports.

”Currently, our country’s development and utilization of the ocean clearly lag behind other countries in the world. Not to mention the great powers, even Germany has more seaports than we do, although their seaports are mainly medium and small ports in the Baltic Sea.”

Germany’s seaports are concentrated in the north, including Kaliningrad from its past Poland and Russia, so the number of German seaports is not small. However, most are confined to the Baltic Sea, and while there is no economic obstruction in peacetime, their navy is unlikely to achieve significant success during wartime.

The same applies to Tsarist Russia and Austria-Hungary. Unlike its past, Austria-Hungary now has Venice, Trieste along the Adriatic coastline, but the Adriatic Sea similarly limits its naval operations.

For Tsarist Russia, it’s needless to say. The Baltic and Black Sea are its main economic areas — both restricted. Although there are seaports in the Pacific Ocean and the Arctic Ocean, neither is ideal for economic activities, including the so-called year-round ice-free port Murmansk, which, like Vladivostok, has more prominent military uses.

Besides these three unfortunate countries, other world powers, at least in terms of seaport numbers, only Brazil and the Far East Empire have fewer than East Africa.

The Far East Empire mainly had too short a period of opening up, and even under the threat of powerful Western powers, only some areas were opened as trade ports. In contrast, Brazil’s insufficient economic development and uneven regional growth led to this state.

From this perspective, East Africa has an average number of seaports, not the best but above others. With limited seaport numbers and increasingly frequent overseas trade, East African government naturally places unprecedented importance on available ports.

”Faced with increasingly fierce ocean competition, East Africa cannot merely develop inland without emphasizing port construction. Excluding special-purpose ports, the number of commercial ports should at least exceed one hundred to drive coastal economic development better and alleviate the pressure on existing ports.”

Special-purpose ports primarily refer to military ports. In this regard, East Africa takes substantial care of its navy, reserving the best port areas in each major sea region for naval base use.

While achieving the goal of surpassing one hundred seaport numbers presents challenges, it is not unachievable since East Africa has many undeveloped bays, especially in the Mozambique region in the east.

In the past, African countries had few seaports mainly due to insufficient economic power, lacking the capability to develop these bays or river estuaries.

Of course, inactive foreign trade activities in these countries are a significant factor; the existing ports completely sufficed for the economic levels in past African countries, so local governments were not keen on building new ports, or were unable to due to knowledge, wars, and other reasons.

The most typical case is the Eastern Power aiding these African countries in constructing ports, roads, and other infrastructure. Without the rise of new emerging forces, Africa could hardly seize any opportunities.

Under East African governance, such a situation naturally would not occur. East Africa itself is one of the era’s ”infrastructure demons,” so the East African government is quite dedicated to port construction.

”Besides domestic maritime construction, breakthroughs should also occur in the construction of colonial ports, with Kundian, Zamboanga, and Davao as the priorities.”

As for other colonies, their significance mainly lies in strategic value, as their economic value cannot compete with the aforementioned three ports. Although the Lan Fang Overseas Province has fewer resources, its area is not small, whereas the Mindanao Island has no shortcomings except for climate and population factors.

Others, like the Southern Ryukyu Islands and the North Hawaiian Kingdom, are too small. Some islands in the Southern Ryukyu Islands even face water supply issues, rendering these colonies barely suitable as naval bases, with minimal economic prospects.

However, the Alaska colony is an exception. Despite its considerable area, resources, and population, East Africa currently lacks the capability to develop Alaska thoroughly. After all, putting in significant efforts only to have the fruits taken by surrounding forces would be a substantial loss.

The area surrounding Alaska is teeming with powerful nations like Canada, the United States, Tsarist Russia, and Japan. Similarly, the Southern Ryukyu Islands and North Hawaiian Kingdom face such potential threats. Hence, the East African government’s main strategy for these areas is stability, ensuring local governance stability and leaving room for long-term development in the future.

”Of course, port construction equates to building roads, and without vehicles, it becomes pointless. Our shipbuilding industry falls significantly behind other world powers. Therefore, vigorously promoting the shipbuilding industry’s development is one of the crucial tasks for the government and enterprises in the next ten to twenty years.”

”Shipbuilding is one of the major heavy industry sectors worldwide, involving metallurgy, machinery, electronics, chemistry, and other fields, effectively driving related industries’ development. Thus, investing in shipbuilding is vital, especially as personnel training in this field is a long-term process.”

Many officials in the East African government understood Ernst’s points well, realizing the development of the shipbuilding industry cannot thrive without personnel and technical support due to its massive engineering, complex processes, significant investment, and focus on systematic operations.

Since the Age of Exploration, shipbuilding has been the industrial crown jewel, and East Africa’s desire to compete in maritime affairs with other nations is inseparable from the substantial development of its domestic shipbuilding industry.