African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1267: Chapter 276: Tin Mines

Of course, if you insist that the Indo-Pacific Road and Rail is a continental bridge, that’s not wrong. After all, the definition of a continental bridge is ”a land route connecting two oceans, spanning the continent, with railways as the backbone, providing a convenient transportation route that avoids detours by sea.”

The Indo-Pacific Road and Rail meets all these points; it connects the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, will indeed use railways as the backbone when completed, and avoids detours by sea.

However, the East African Government is still relatively modest, so they named it ”Indo-Pacific Road and Rail,” of course, they can’t afford the disgrace.

Ernst said: ”The current military arrangements concerning the Kra Strait Territory are as follows, the General Staff’s plan is relatively stable. We cannot ignore the difficulties and challenges of combat in tropical jungles; instead, we should overcome unfavorable factors.”

”After all, large regions in our country have a tropical rainforest climate, and the South Sea Region is the most important and concentrated colony area for our country.”

The colonies of East Africa in the South Sea Region are also the most resource-rich overseas area in East Africa, possessing abundant natural resources, even surpassing the resource-rich Beibu Gulf Territory.

After all, the East African South Sea colonies are rich in petroleum resources, though less abundant than the Beibu Gulf Territory, yet the scale is still considerable.

And other mineral resources are even more numerous, such as coal, iron, copper, aluminum, natural gas, tin mines, etc., all of which are absent from the Beibu Gulf Territory.

”Whether it’s various mineral resources or agricultural conditions, the South Sea colonies are considered quite good among the world’s colonies. The only lack is development intensity.”

”In the future, the South Sea Region will be our mine, plantation, and forest farm, a beneficial supplement to domestic economic construction.”

Ernst’s speech essentially established the South Sea colonies as the core within the East African colonial system, akin to India’s position for the United Kingdom, and Algeria’s for France.

The core of the East African South Sea colonies can be divided into four major blocks: East Kalimantan, Mindanao Island, Dongshu New Guinea, and the newly incorporated Kra Strait Territory.

Among these four block colonies, the smallest Kra Strait Territory covers more than fifty thousand square kilometers, while other colonies in the South Sea are small islands almost negligible in size.

From Kra Strait Territory to East African New Guinea, the straight-line distance alone is nearly five thousand kilometers, if extended further to Samoa, it exceeds ten thousand kilometers.

Ernst said: ”Now, let’s discuss the economic and population development of the Kra Strait Territory, Fen Ge’er, you will introduce this to everyone.”

Fen Ge’er: ”Alright, Your Majesty, according to discussions with colonial departments, here is the arrangement for Kra Strait Territory.”

”In terms of transportation, Kra Strait concerns the important corridor of the Indo-Pacific Road and Rail, so we will build a railway from Shadun to Songkla locally.”

”The final length of the railway is less than two hundred kilometers, serving as the fastest land bridge project connecting the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. Due to Shadun’s complex terrain, this railway cannot be a straight line.”

”Furthermore, Indo-Pacific Road and Rail includes two port projects: one is the construction of Shadun Port, and the other is the Songkla Port renovation project.”

”The original Shadun Prefecture in Siam doesn’t have a modern port of scale, so we will select a site to construct a major port locally, responsible for serving ferries traveling between the mainland and Kra Strait.”

”While Songkla itself is a well-developed port with decent conditions, it is relatively backward in infrastructure due to its deviation from Siam’s core Mae Nam River Plain, needing a large-scale renovation.”

Sea-land intermodal transport inevitably requires ports as nodes, so Indo-Pacific Road and Rail cannot randomly select sites but rather seek two ports along the east and west coasts of the Kra Strait, with comparable distances, and build railways, highways, and other transportation arteries between them.

Actually, a better choice was the Glass City Port of Malaysia in the previous era, which offered more favorable conditions and was closer to Songkla.

However, since Glass City was already occupied by the British, East Africa can only settle for the next best and choose a place in Shadun to build a new port.

Fen Ge’er continued: ”In the future, there is a possibility to construct a backup route from Phuket Island to Wan Lun, though this is not currently in our plans.”

”Economically, the agricultural development conditions in the Kra Strait Territory are far inferior to our homeland, suitable for tropical plantation economies.”

”Regarding minerals, the area’s advantageous resource is tin mines; the Kra Strait has always been a significant tin mining district since ancient times, and we will organize personnel to conduct focused surveys and analysis of the local tin resources.”

Tin is a minor metal highly valued in East Africa. As East Africa’s production of fine electronic products increases, the demand for tin is also rising annually.

However, tin mines are extremely scarce resources; their rarity is notable not only in East Africa but worldwide—tin mines are relatively rare, and a deposit of tens of thousands of tons is considered a top world-class mine.

Fortunately, its demand is not high; even in the previous era, global demand was only around tens of thousands of tons each year.

Currently, East Africa’s tin mining areas are mainly concentrated in central regions, generally consisting of small mines with development efficiency inferior to South Sea colonies.

Of course, this excludes the yet-to-be-developed Kra Strait Territory, referring specifically to East Africa’s Lanfang Overseas Province, which is currently the largest source of tin in East Africa, though East Kalimantan also has tin mines but remains undeveloped.

Yet, the tin reserves in Kra Strait Territory show the greatest potential among East African colonies; tin mines exist in every province of the original Siam.

In the previous era, Siam’s tin reserves were even considered world-leading for a while until excessive exploitation allowed other countries to surpass it.

Over ninety percent of Siam’s tin mines were located in the Kra Strait area, and besides Ranong Province and Chumphon Province, nearly all other tin mines from the previous era of Siam have fallen into East African hands.

Moreover, the local tin mines often contain associated minerals, including ilmenite and tungsten, both high-value minerals.

Of course, East Africa currently lacks awareness of this fact, even Ernst in the previous era could not focus on the mineral resources of the Kra Strait area.

East African Government’s knowledge of abundant local tin mines derives from Siam and the Malays’ long history of tin mining development. Today, it remains a significant tin mining district.

However, once East Africa’s experts conduct field studies, the mineral resource situation in the Kra Strait will become clearer to the East African Government.

Fen Ge’er said: ”The primary uses of tin are electronic component circuit solder and the tinplate industry. These two primary uses currently have a promising market outlook; the former sees supply unable to meet demand as household appliance types increase, production expands, and the repair industry grows, while the latter faces large gaps due to flourishing canned goods exports.”

Tinplate, essentially tinsheet iron, combines features of corrosion resistance, non-toxicity, high strength, and excellent ductility.

It is widely used in food production enterprises for cans, such as tea packaging boxes, beverage bottles, cigarette boxes, etc., all could use it. Stimulated by the current European battlefield, military food can sales are extremely thriving.

This also establishes the massive current demand for tin in East African industries, so the Kra Strait’s sole advantageous mineral, tin mines, attracting attention is quite reasonable.

Fen Ge’er continued: ”On minerals, outside of tin mines, we have limited knowledge of some small iron mines in Kra Strait, though their economic value is not great.”

”Overall, the mineral resources of Kra Strait are quite scarce. However, considering Kra Strait Territory’s area is only fifty thousand square kilometers, and Siam’s development intensity locally was minor, the specific mineral potential still requires subsequent evaluation by professional personnel.”

”Specifically targeting the advantageous tin resources, once the situation in Kra Strait Territory stabilizes, we will plan and manage all tin mines uniformly to increase local output, replacing the previous Siamese backward digging and smelting methods.”