African Entrepreneurship Record

In this national industrial summary, the most prominent part is still focused on the field of internal combustion vehicles, which is also one of the key areas of interest for Ernst and the East African Government.

”As of last year, the total number of internal combustion vehicles in our country has reached 700,000, covering three major types: cars, trucks, and tractors. The number of cars is the highest in the world, exceeding 170,000, with trucks at 200,000, and tractors over 300,000. We have built more than a million kilometers of new highways and reconstructed or newly constructed three million kilometers of farm roads.”

In this regard, East Africa has truly taken the lead. Just in the category of cars, the number of vehicles in East Africa exceeds the total of all other countries combined. The country with the second-highest number of cars, the United States, has just surpassed 10,000, while East Africa’s car production is more than ten times that of America.

Moreover, in the next decade, the East African automobile industry will undergo a new wave of growth. During this industrial upgrade, East Africa has already completed integration and upgrading of the local automotive industry, forming seven large automotive manufacturing enterprises covering 59 car brands, with over 400 factories across more than 30 cities nationwide.

Nowadays in East Africa, the manufacturing industries of cars, trucks, and tractors have all become emerging industries that can compete with traditional industries.

Corresponding to the great development of internal combustion vehicles in East Africa, from colonial times to nation-building, to now, Ernst feels that his primary task is infrastructure construction. Besides new constructions, the current infrastructure development in East Africa can be divided into three main parts.

Nationwide, it’s about rebuilding the road system, hardening pavements to provide the foundation for the development of the automobile industry, renovating the eastern river waterways and water facilities, and building new hydraulic facilities in other regions. Previously, due to the limited production of industrial products like cement in East Africa, the original water facilities were relatively primitive, mainly constructed using timber. Now, as cement and steel production increases, there is a need for reconstruction, and new hydraulic projects that were previously impossible are being built.

The proliferation of tractors also requires East Africa to update roads in agricultural zones such as rural areas, farmlands, plantations, and ranches. So, entering the ’90s, the workload in East Africa has increased even more than before.

Compared to cars, the level of truck and tractor proliferation is even greater, as seen in the production levels. The numbers of trucks and tractors both exceed that of cars since East Africa places more emphasis on practicality and efficiency.

Car production is entirely driven by the need to win people’s support, primarily to outfit East African officials and researchers.

Even so, this is already quite good, considering that currently, only the wealthy in Europe and America can afford to play with cars, as the car industry has not yet reached the civilian market.

By looking at East Africa’s car production, one can see that East Africa will be the first to bring cars to the civilian market, ahead of Europe and America.

Of course, under Ernst’s directives, East Africa also places importance on the research and development of public transportation tools, as East Africa’s domestic oil resources are relatively scarce.

Similarly, East African car research and development is moving toward the two major directions of ”speed” and ”fuel efficiency.” This requires East African car companies to handle the differentiation between domestic and foreign markets, and the domestic market needs to be divided into civilian and military sectors.

Ernst has an awareness of ”energy security and crisis,” which is a concept absent in foreign markets. Therefore, the pursuit of cars in foreign markets focuses on the experience, and ”fuel efficiency” inevitably sacrifices some of the experiential value. Fortunately, East Africa is a country with a closed market, so it is well-practiced in taking a differentiated route.

Otherwise, East Africa’s enormous car production capacity could completely crush the automobile manufacturers of other countries. In fact, now international competitors are already suffering from the East African competitors, and this is only under the circumstances of East African coastal car companies exerting effort.

The main layout of East Africa’s automotive industry is inland, focusing primarily on domestic supply. Exports mainly rely on car manufacturing companies in the two coastal cities of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa.

After all, East Africa follows a planned economy, which does not need to overly emphasize market economy content. The current planned economy content is to enhance East Africa’s industrialization level.

As in the manufacture of internal combustion vehicles, East Africa does not pay much attention to profit. Otherwise, given the current income level of East African residents, pushing for the development of East Africa’s car industry would undoubtedly be very challenging, and even East African officials could not easily afford it.

So the market for East Africa’s automotive industry, excluding the high-profit foreign market, adopts an approach similar to the Far East Empire railway department in the previous life, with passenger transportation losses offset by freight profits. This is also why East Africa’s production of trucks and tractors exceeds that of cars; trucks and tractors can create more industrial and agricultural revenue, whereas cars fall short.

Of course, even so, it is beneficial for the expansion of the East African car industry. After all, under the government’s administrative measures, a domestic market has been forcibly created, which is the largest in the world, although the profit is far less than the foreign market.

The next goal of East African car companies is to further reduce production costs and expand production capacity to truly achieve the goal of East Africa being a ”nation on wheels.”

”Internal combustion vehicles have already begun to play a significant role in our country’s transportation, engineering construction, and agricultural production. At the same time, industrial production equipment related to internal combustion engines, such as engines and generators, are widely used in factories, and many water conservancy and other civil facilities also require pumps powered by internal combustion engines or motors.”

”The internal combustion engine industry and the electric power industry have undoubtedly become the most important engines of our East African development, enabling us to be the first to achieve the goal of a strong industrial nation in new industrial sectors.”

”Without the continuous effort and enormous potential of these emerging industries, East Africa would always just be a follower of Europe and America. Yet, the leading position in emerging industries means that our country’s industrial development has seized the future. As time progresses, our country’s industrial advantages will inevitably become increasingly prominent on the global stage.”

In traditional industries, East Africa, Germany, and the United States can’t easily surpass the United Kingdom, especially in steam engines and textiles. The solution is to eliminate traditional industries through emerging industries, thereby capturing market share.

Of course, like East Africa, the traditional industries in the United States and Germany are also very strong, which is the main reason for the huge economic disparity between East Africa and the two countries.

Another issue is that there is still a gap in the current industrial scale of East Africa compared to the two countries, although this gap is not very large. Mainly, East Africa’s population growth rate is too fast, so even if East Africa’s industrialization and urbanization rates do not increase, industrial scale will passively increase with population growth.

In fact, the industrialization of the United States surpassed the United Kingdom in 1890 by this route. Population is an important resource in the era of industrialization, as countries undergoing industrialization will experience a population boom.

However, it is also very difficult for East Africa to ensure that the level of industrialization does not decline while achieving growth, as a large population is also a burden.

Nevertheless, the international environment of East Africa during its industrialization stage is much better than that of the Far East Empire in its previous life. In this era, the blockade by advanced countries against backward countries is much less because the world is not dominated by a single power, but is truly multipolar. Although there are strong and weak, this undeniably creates more opportunities for backward regions and countries.

In the 19th century, currency was tied to gold and silver, and as a major gold-producing country, East Africa could buy any industrial equipment it wanted during its industrialization stage. This is one of the important reasons East Africa could easily complete industry upgrades.

Of course, the strength of emerging industries in East Africa is not weak. But post-upgrade, industries such as coal, steel, railways, chemicals, and textiles also achieved updates and iterations, greatly saving time and efficiency.

This has laid a good foundation for the next step in East Africa’s industrialization. Even in the face of population growth pressure, the East African government is confident in ensuring further growth in the country’s industrial level in the next decade.