African Entrepreneurship Record

Iringa City.

As an ordinary city with little presence in East Africa, the exploration of industrial development by the Iringa Municipal Government during the Second Five-Year Plan was relatively difficult.

Iringa City has almost no special resources. Although there are some small minerals in the territory, they are not worth developing at present.

Therefore, the Iringa Municipal Government has no idea how to develop industry. For this reason, Mayor Randall held a special meeting to find the industrial development path of the city.

Randall first set the tone and said: "Now the national industrial construction is in full swing. During the First Five-Year Plan, our city made remarkable achievements and established the most basic industries such as flour processing, cotton spinning, and oil pressing. However, during the Second Five-Year Plan, we can't continue to make achievements on this track, because almost all towns in the country are focusing on these most basic industries."

"This also made my country's industry develop rapidly during the First Five-Year Plan, because many gaps in many fields were filled during the First Five-Year Plan, and doing so during the Second Five-Year Plan is obviously not conducive to the competition between the city's industry and other cities."

"The funds of the municipal government are limited. Most of the national industrial construction funds are invested in central or provincial state-owned enterprises, concentrated in large cities, and cannot be obtained. With the strong support of the central government, we in Iringa can only give priority to developing some industrial categories that we are good at and have low thresholds. "

"The main crops in our city are wheat and tobacco, and other crops can be almost ignored, but these two crops are too common in East Africa. Iringa City is not a major industrial and mining city at the same time, which means that the industrial development of our city is difficult, especially the heavy industry. Our city's foundation is quite weak, so everyone wants to think about how to continue to improve the industrial scale of our city on the basis of the First Five-Year Plan. "

For the mayor's words, officials of the Iringa Municipal Government also feel a headache. During the First Five-Year Plan, industrial development was relatively easy. As long as they followed the example, most towns could achieve good industrial development achievements.

But the Second Five-Year Plan is obviously different from the First Five-Year Plan. It should be clear that before the First Five-Year Plan, most cities in East Africa also had industrial accumulation, and during the First Five-Year Plan, the central government took the lead and various towns realized the integration of their own industrial resources.

Some towns lack important resources for industrial development, but no matter how bad the conditions are, there is no problem in developing primary food processing and agricultural product processing.

During the First Five-Year Plan, the resources of these industries have been integrated to a certain extent, greatly improving the industrial scale of East Africa, but this also requires that industrial development must find a new way out during the Second Five-Year Plan.

Following Randall's speech, the officials of the Iringa Municipal Government fell into thought, and this obviously had a certain effect.

Hemers, director of the Iringa Municipal Bureau of Industry and Commerce, said: "Mayor, I have a little opinion on industrial development. We may have fallen into the misunderstanding of industrial development resources."

Hearing Hemers say this, of course, it aroused Randall's interest. He said: "Speak freely. As long as it can help improve the industrial level of our city, no matter what the idea is, it can be used as a reference."

After getting Randall's approval, Hemers sorted out his thoughts and then said: "In the past, when we thought about industrial development, we paid too much attention to the support of the higher-level government, or too much attention to the favorable resources of the city, but the problem is The reason is that Iringa is not necessarily ranked high among East African cities, even in the province, so we cannot rely too much on policies and support for the development of our city. At the same time, Iringa lacks mineral resources for industrial development, which means we cannot rely on mineral resources for development like other cities. "

Among more than 600 cities in East Africa, Iringa's industrial level can only be ranked in the upper middle level, almost more than 200, so Iringa is difficult to attract the attention of the East African government. Iringa can be ranked relatively high because of its early development history and the fact that it is along the Central Railway.

Hemers continued, "So the development experience of other cities in East Africa, especially those with strong industries, may not be suitable for us."

"Take transportation conditions for example. Although our city has a railway, and it is a trunk line, our city is just an ordinary city on the central railway, not a transportation hub. Therefore, the development path of New Frankfurt and our provincial capital Dodoma is obviously not suitable for Iringa. At the same time, our city is not a coastal city, and is destined to be subject to more restrictions on economic development."

"Not to mention mineral resources. Our city has no coal mines or iron mines, and lacks other more important minerals. Therefore, industrial and mining cities, such as Mbeya, have developed based on mining resources and have become the earliest heavy industrial base in my country."

"So our city wants If we want to develop, we can't take the conventional path. We can't compete with those cities. "

Randall nodded and said, "We understand what you said. The question is how to develop in an unconventional way?"

Hemers said slowly, "In the past, our country attached importance to the development of heavy industry and defense industry, and light industry has not been given much attention. Although the development of light industry has made great progress during the Second Five-Year Plan, in my opinion, it has great potential and still has a lot of room for growth."

"Hemers, you mean to develop light industry, but the central government did the same during the Second Five-Year Plan. Isn't it the same? Our city has already laid out the light industry during the Second Five-Year Plan, and upgraded state-owned flour mills, cotton textile mills, cigarette factories, etc. "Someone asked back.

Hemes shook her head at other people's doubts and said: "This level of industry is completely insufficient. Light industry cannot be solved by just a few factories related to food, clothing, housing and transportation."

"Take flour mills as an example. I have learned about flour processing companies in this city. They can only produce the most basic flour products, but there are many flour-related industries. This is most typical in Europe. For example, in Europe, Bread workshops, large and small, and other items such as biscuits, snacks, etc. are inseparable from flour. Some factories have been able to achieve large-scale production, so we can completely rely on flour mills to extend other light industrial categories. Bread may not be able to do this, but biscuits and some other items are easy to store. For snacks, related factories can be set up.”

Bread is the most important staple food for Europeans, but it has undergone major changes in East Africa. In East Africa, daily pasta types are diversified. Bread, steamed buns, sesame cakes, pancakes, scones, etc. exist at the same time. Therefore, Hermes is very concerned about bread production. Not very interested, at least in the East African market it is not as easy to sell as in European and American countries.

"In this way, the industrial chain will increase, and the industry will naturally increase at the same time. Take biscuits as an example, the market prospect is quite good, it is durable in storage, easy to transport, and tastes good. Our city can definitely establish Related food companies, and the investment doesn’t need to be too big.”

Randall nodded and said: "It makes sense. We also have biscuit manufacturers in East Africa. However, there are few biscuit varieties and quantities in the general market. There is indeed a certain room for development, so the biscuit industry is indeed a relatively safe industry. "

Hermes said: "That's it. Now our country's industrialized food processing field is concentrated in the primary stage. Many agricultural products are directly sold abroad after initial processing, but the field of terminal consumer goods is still a blue ocean. If our city can focus on this This is very beneficial to the industrial development of our city.”

"People's needs are diverse, and everyone has different preferences. However, my country's food industry is relatively homogeneous. If our city can develop products that meet the needs of its people based on the needs of its own market, then sales will naturally not be a problem. By improving If the food ingredients and taste are better, our products will be more popular, and we will be able to occupy more markets and promote the development of the city’s industry.”