African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1072 Seven Urban Agglomerations

Steel production is an important factor used by East Africa to measure the level of national industrial development, so it is always placed at the top of the national industrial development conference.

The potential of East Africa's steel industry is still huge, mainly because with the implementation of two five-year plans, East Africa's domestic industrial level has improved and the gap in the steel industry has become increasingly larger.

Therefore, during the Third Five-Year Plan, continuing to significantly increase East Africa's steel production remains an important issue for East African governments.

……

With the conclusion of the steel industry analysis, the East African government did not continue to summarize other industries, but first summarized the national regional economic and industrial development.

Siwei Te said: "At present, my country has formed three major industrial clusters, namely the east, the middle and the west. With these three industrial clusters, my country's industry has developed rapidly and formed three major industrial zones that are not inferior to those of other countries."

Among the three major industrial clusters in East Africa, even the weakest western industrial cluster has grown to a considerable scale through two five-year plans, and is considered a place with good industrial development even among the powerful countries.

In addition, the industrial development in southern East Africa is also good, but the southern industry is concentrated in the coastal port city of Nova Hamburg and the city of Maputo, while the inland industry and urban development are relatively weak.

Therefore, the southern industrial cluster can only be considered half. In fact, three and a half major industrial clusters have been formed in East Africa. With the equator as the boundary, the East African economy clearly shows the characteristics of being strong in the south and weak in the north.

"We currently divide the country into seven major city clusters based on actual conditions. These seven city clusters are mainly based on the level of industrial development between regions and are not strongly correlated. After rough calculations and rendering, we define the seven most industrially powerful urban-dense areas in the country as seven major city clusters. These seven city clusters are the Rhine City Cluster, the Bohemia and Lorraine City Cluster, the East Coast City Cluster, the West Coast City Cluster, the Lake Malawi City Cluster, the Southern City Cluster and the Great Lakes City Cluster."

From the name alone, it can be seen that the seven urban agglomerations are just informal concepts temporarily used by the East African government for reference in national economic and industrial development.

After all, even these seven urban agglomerations may not have deep policy and economic connections within them. The East African government simply connected places with similar distances and economic development levels together to form the so-called seven urban agglomerations on the map.

Siwei Te introduced the map and said: "The Rhine city cluster is centered on Rhine City and New Frankfurt City, including important cities such as Kabwe, Lusaka, Kitwe, and Lubumbashi, covering core industries such as non-ferrous metal smelting, electricity, automobile manufacturing, steel, precision instrument manufacturing, and railways."

The Rhine city agglomeration, also known as the capital city agglomeration, has a dual-core structure. Although Rhine City has a prominent position as the capital of East Africa, in terms of economy, it is mainly centered on New Frankfurt City. New Frankfurt City has assumed the economic, transportation, industrial and other management functions of Rhine City from the very beginning.

"The Bohemian and Lorraine urban agglomeration, with Harare and Bulawayo as its core, includes cities such as Tatu, Kwiru, Rope... In addition to Harare and Bulawayo, it is dominated by many small and medium-sized industrial and mining cities, including mining, steel, non-ferrous metal smelting, large-scale machinery manufacturing, textiles, electricity and other industries."

“The East Coast city cluster, with Dar es Salaam and Mombasa as its core, includes important cities such as Nairobi, Bagamoyo, and First Town City. Its total economic output ranks among the highest in the country, second only to the Bohemian and Lorraine city clusters. In particular, its import and export trade is the highest in the country, covering industries such as chemicals, steel, textiles, and electricity.”

"The West Coast urban agglomeration is centered on Cabinda and Luanda, and includes important cities such as Kinshasa, Lobito, Benguela, and Alexandria. With the help of my country's trade with Atlantic countries, it has developed rapidly and is currently ranked fourth."

"The city cluster around Lake Malawi is centered on Mbeya and Tete. Tete has maintained rapid development in recent years. Although there is still a big gap compared with Mbeya, due to geographical reasons, Mbeya is at the northernmost end of Lake Malawi, while Tete is at the southern end. The two cities complement each other to a high degree of cooperation. The share of heavy industry is second only to the Bohemia and Lorraine city clusters, and steel production currently ranks second in the country." "The southern city cluster is centered on the New Hamburg Port City and Maputo City. The southern city cluster is the original Zulu and Boer distribution area. It is the region with the richest mineral resources in my country, and is more prominent in industrial fields such as steel, shipbuilding, and electricity."

"The Great Lakes city cluster has no obvious core city. The most developed cities in the region are Kisumu, Mwanza and Kampala. It is the weakest among the seven major city clusters, but its water transport advantage is the most prominent in the country, and its agricultural product processing industry is the largest in the country."

The concept of seven urban agglomerations is a summary of the industrial development during the Second Five-Year Plan. They are the seven regions with the most concentrated and developed industries in East Africa. This shows that East Africa's industry has already formed a huge scale and is relatively concentrated.

Moreover, many of the seven major urban agglomerations are based on dual cores, the most typical of which are Dar es Salaam and Mombasa in the East Coast urban agglomeration, and Harare and Bulawayo in the Bohemia and Lorraine urban agglomeration.

"The seven major city clusters reflect the overall distribution of my country's industry, accounting for more than 70 percent of my country's industrial production."

"However, this also brings uncertainty to my country's future industrial and urban development. The high concentration of industrial production today is also likely to lead to differences in economic development levels across the country, but industrial agglomeration is also conducive to driving the development of my country's industry."

As Siweit's words came to an end, everyone began to think. The boundary between industrial agglomeration and dispersion in East Africa is not clear. The industrial agglomeration effect is indeed obvious, but the Second Five-Year Plan is obviously more balanced than the First Five-Year Plan.

This was even more so before the First Five-Year Plan, when central and eastern East Africa accounted for the majority of the industry and economy. Today, due to industrial development in western and southern regions, the balance among East African regions is obviously more balanced than before the First Five-Year Plan.

Ernst expressed his own opinion: "The speed of development of our country's industry shows that there is no problem with this path at present. As for the relationship between pursuing growth rate and balance, we need to look at it from a dynamic perspective."

"Today, my country's industry is still mainly focused on the pursuit of stock, because our priority is the competition with other major countries in the world, so it is more important for us to concentrate our efforts on major tasks, improve production efficiency and reduce costs. Only after we have firmly grasped the market, should we focus on other places."

"It's the same as people need to eat first before pursuing other things. Our national strength is not able to support balanced development across the country. Even if we want to achieve balanced development, it is not realistic. We can only achieve relative balance."

"The emergence of the seven mega-city clusters illustrates the development trend of my country's industry over the past decade. These seven regions have combined their advantages in resources, population, transportation, and market, and their emergence in the national economy is not accidental."

"Nowadays, our country is facing a period of major changes in the world pattern. The international situation is becoming increasingly turbulent, especially the conflicts between European countries are becoming increasingly prominent. It also represents opportunities for us in East Africa. If we want to gain an advantage in the next few years, we must first ensure the expansion of our domestic industrial scale before considering other issues."

Without the development of the two five-year plans, East Africa would not have been able to form the seven major urban agglomerations it has today. At least in the west, such as Mozambique, which was ruled later in East Africa, it would be impossible to reach the same level as other places in a short period of time without a tilt in national policies.

Without adequate industrial development, it is impossible to form large urban agglomerations. Although these urban agglomerations still have a lot of room for improvement in their industrial strength, it also shows that East Africa’s first two five-year plans were qualified.

(End of this chapter)