African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 682 Development Strategy

At the end of 1885, the western section of the Northern Railway was officially opened to traffic, while the Hessian Railway had not yet been completed. The difficulty of the Hessian Railway was still much higher than that of the western section of the Northern Railway.

 Since the completion of the western section of the Northern Railway, the Mombasa Municipal Government has discussed this matter separately.

Because Mombasa is the starting point of the Northern Railway, the larger the Northern Railway's radiation area, the more beneficial it will be to boost the economic and political status of Mombasa.

 In fact, over the years, due to the exaggerated length advantage of the Central Railway and the vastness of the economic hinterland, the city of Mombasa has always been dominated by the city of Dar es Salaam.

 The most obvious one is that the population, resources, and number of cities along the Northern Railway are much worse than those of the Central Railway.

Therefore, the city of Mombasa strongly welcomes the construction of the western section of the Northern Railway, as well as the connection between Kisan City and the Central Railway, so that it can have more motivation to compete with Dar es Salaam, the city with the largest economy in East Africa.

From the perspective of East Africa's domestic economic location, Mombasa does not have an advantage. However, when contacting foreign countries and East Africa, we can find the advantage of Mombasa, which is that it is closer to the Eurasian continent than Dar es Salaam.

 Mogadishu in the north focuses on exporting agricultural products and has poor environmental carrying capacity, which is not enough to compete with Mombasa and Dar es Salaam.

“There is a huge gap between the west and east of East Africa, and the Northern Railway is an important factor in changing this, which means that the original traffic order in the entire northern region has been broken.”

"In the competition between Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, the important reason why we were at a disadvantage was that the economy of the northern interior was far behind that of the central and southern regions. If it were not for the Great Lakes region as the northern population and Economic ballast, then we can completely give up the competition with Dar es Salaam."

Although the Great Lakes Region is dominated by agriculture, the current national economy in East Africa is also dominated by agriculture. Moreover, the Great Lakes Region is densely populated and relatively rich in resources. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to call it the ballast stone of Mombasa City’s economy. As long as the Great Lakes Region If the freight goes to the sea through Mombasa, then Mombasa's economy will inevitably maintain its dominant position in East Africa. If it cannot be first, it will inevitably be second.

“With the western section of the Northern Railway, this situation will be greatly changed. The immigration progress of Sigmaringen can also be greatly accelerated. At the same time, it will play a huge role in exchanges with many northern provinces.”

  The royal territory of Sigmaringen and several northern provinces connected by the Northern Railway have actually very limited development, and a large number of resources have not been developed. The opening of the Northern Railway has provided transportation conditions for the development of these resources.

“The entire northern industrial belt will be the beneficiary of this western section of the Northern Railway project. The opening of this railway will directly push the radiating area of ​​the northern industrial belt from the Great Lakes region to the westernmost part of the country, and connect the economy of the entire West Africa. , which solves the main shortcoming of the northern industrial belt, which is the lack of resources.”

 Mineral resources and markets are important components of industry and are indispensable, followed by other factors, such as water sources, population, transportation, etc.

There is actually a shortage of minerals in the northern industrial belt, or the quality of mineral resources is relatively poor, which also makes the quality of products in the northern industrial belt relatively poor. The city of Mombasa has to import a large amount of coal and iron ore from India to develop its industry.

"But this is also something to be happy about in the short term. Don't think that just because of the construction of the Northern Railway, you can just sit on this railway and reap the dividends. Although Eurasia is our main trade market in East Africa, it can also radiate from the west coast to Europe. , and can benchmark South and North America, plus West Africa, which cannot be ignored.” ˆ ˆ ˆ In the past, the economy of East Africa and South America was mainly Cape Town Strait and the Red Sea route, but now that the western section of the Northern Railway has been completed, This will provide a new outlet for northern foreign trade in the future. What East Africa currently lacks is the outlet along the Atlantic coast.

“Especially on the west coast, only the Angola area in the north has a good climate environment and convenient water transportation. Our northern industrial belt cannot compare with this. The northern industrial belt mainly relies on the construction of the northern railway, and the East African railway will definitely become more and more popular in the future. More and more until it covers the whole country.”

The economic future of the west coast is bound to be concentrated in northern Angola. Unlike the east coast, there are four large economic blocks. From north to south are Mogadishu and Kismayo in Somalia, and the starting point of the Northern Railway. Mombasa, the starting point of the central railway is the city of Dar es Salaam, and the terminal point of the central railway is the city of New Hamburg, forming a relatively fierce competition.

If the Atlantic coast is included in the East African territory in the future, it will still compete with the city of Mombasa. Because East Africa currently lacks economic pillar ports on the Atlantic coast, most logistics in the west mainly rely on eastern ports, even if they are closer to the Atlantic Ocean.

The most intuitive manifestation is the trade between East Africa and North and South America. The Red Sea route is larger than the Cape Town route. Of course, this is due to the high winds and rough waves at the Cape of Good Hope and the bad weather along the coast of Southwest Africa, which is not suitable for ship navigation. At the same time, the most important reason is that most of East Africa is now Logistics are concentrated in more than a dozen external ports along the eastern coast.

“So to ensure the economic advantage of Mombasa City in the future, we must immediately lay out the northwest region to make it path dependent and minimize our distance disadvantage.”

 Business path dependence, to put it bluntly, is to provide better services and ensure that the number of customers is not affected.

“Our main target is the economic connection between the royal territory of Sigmaringen and West Africa. It is best for the provincial government to unite the entire northern region to create a northern economic corridor with the northern industrial belt as the core, from Mombasa to the interior of West Africa. The core area of ​​the mainland.”

Taking the Northern Industrial Belt as the core is because the city of Mombasa certainly does not have such strength. The entire Northern Industrial Belt is one of the three major industrial regions in East Africa. Therefore, in the name of Northern Industry, we will develop the royal territory of Sigmaringen in northwest East Africa. , it is possible for the economy of West Africa to be realized.

The city of Mombasa has transferred many of these benefits to cities such as Kisumu and Nairobi, but the ultimate beneficiary is Mombasa, because the Port of Mombasa is the end and starting point of the economy. As long as it is the economic activity of the Northern Economic Belt, It will eventually converge into the city of Mombasa.

 Hence, promoting the development of the Northern Industrial Belt is to promote the development of Mombasa City itself. Under this logic, the Mombasa City Government is more motivated to give up some of its benefits rather than develop alone.

In fact, Mombasa has already felt the disadvantage of developing alone, especially compared with Dar es Salaam, which has a lot of brothers. Dar es Salaam itself has many surrounding cities, plus the cities along the central railway , Mbeya, Dodoma, Mwanza, Harare, etc., so it is difficult for Dar es Salaam not to develop.

When the Hessian Railway is opened in the future, Dar es Salaam will go further, so this is also a problem that Mombasa is worried about. If it wants to compete with Dar es Salaam, the only way out is to integrate the northern economy. At the same time, we are looking for foreign aid to reduce the gap with Dar es Salaam.

Of course, Mombasa also knows that there is little chance of winning the competition with Dar es Salaam. The main reason is to avoid being widened, continue to enjoy the treatment of East Africa's economic twins, and avoid Dar es Salaam being the only one. big.

 (End of this chapter)