African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1392 Regional Economic Cooperation Organization
Without Germany, the Kingdom of South Germany would not be able to replicate the successful experience of East Africa, and even without the ability to attract European immigrants. Not to mention that other conditions in South Germany were much worse than those in East Africa.

Moreover, although the South German Kingdom was relatively rich in resources, its ability to develop and monetize them was much poorer. East Africa was able to quickly accumulate initial development funds largely because Ernst knew the approximate distribution of many minerals in East Africa.

Therefore, the early exploration of mineral resources in East Africa can be said to be a semi-open-book exam. Within the approximate area defined by Ernst, by hiring professional mineral prospectors from Europe, it was easy to find some sizable mines, the most typical of which was the copper mine on the Katanga Plateau.

As for the Kingdom of South Germany, Ernst was powerless in the past. After all, Ernst's work in his previous life was concentrated in East African and South African countries.

In short, it is difficult for the Kingdom of South Germany to replicate the successful experience of East Africa, but it is also difficult to get rid of the influence of East Africa.

Afterwards, after exchanging a few words with Ludwig I, Friedrich continued his reception work.

There were only six countries and regions participating in the so-called international conference led by East Africa, namely Italy, Belgium, Spain, the Kingdom of South Germany, the Darfur region, and the Abyssinian Empire.

Among them, Italy mainly had the Red Sea colonies, Belgium had the Congo colonies, Spain had Spanish Guinea, the Darfur government was a puppet regime supported by East Africa, and the Kingdom of South Germany and the Abyssinian Empire also had close relations with East Africa.

What these countries have in common is that they are all located around East Africa, and the central topic of this so-called international conference is the establishment of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.

The meeting officially started at nine o'clock in the morning.

The meeting was still chaired by Crown Prince Friedrich, which made other participating countries smell some political signals in East Africa, that is, Crown Prince Friedrich may now start to have more and more contact and carry out government affairs like Crown Prince Rudolf of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Crown Prince Friedrich said, "East Africa has invited you all here this time. I think you should be aware of the general situation. That is to strengthen economic cooperation between East and Southern Africa, so as to establish a common market for East and South Africa and achieve mutual exchange and common development among countries."

The so-called Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa is indeed a bit shabby judging from the current participating countries and regions. After all, there are only seven countries and regions including East Africa, the leader.

However, these six countries and regions account for more than half of Africa's area, and their total population in Africa is close to 180 million.

Friedrich said: "Based on the current population development in our countries, in a few years the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa will be a world-class market with a population of over 200 million, and the population in the region may even exceed 300 million in the future."

"The reason why we in East Africa are hosting the establishment of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa is to strengthen economic ties between countries in the region, thereby driving the economic development of the entire region."

"For example, the Belgian Congo and the Abyssinian Empire were both important countries and regions in the region, but there was almost no economic and trade exchange between the two."

"Within the common market, the two sides can use this new platform to create intersections. Belgian technology and capital can flow to the Abyssinian Empire, and the Abyssinian Empire's minerals and agricultural products can also find new sales channels."

Before this, the Belgian Congo, the Kingdom of South Germany, the Abyssinian Empire, the Italian Red Sea colony, and the Darfur region supported by East Africa had basically no intersection.

Now the proposal of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa can bring them together within a framework and stimulate exchanges and development among regions.

Why does East Africa do this? One reason is to facilitate East Africa's integration of regional resources. These countries and regions are important neighbors of East Africa. To put it more bluntly, these regions are East Africa's backyard, so integrating this backyard is obviously very important for East Africa.

On the other hand, the construction of this common market will help stimulate the economic development of the north of East Africa, where the economy is the weakest.

Economic development first requires the flow of people and resources, and the above-mentioned countries and regions all border the northern part of East Africa.

The Abyssinian Empire and the Red Sea Colonies were located in the eastern part of northern East Africa, Darfur was further north, and the other three countries and regions, namely the South German Kingdom, Belgian Congo, and Spanish Guinea, tended to the west.

If trade between them is strengthened, it will inevitably stimulate the economic development of northern East Africa, as northern East Africa is located at the center of these countries and regions.

After all, business exchanges between them can only be achieved through the land transportation system in northern East Africa.

Therefore, Friedrich said: "With the help of the empire's railway and road network, especially the pan-Southeast African railway network we are promoting, this solves the problem of inconvenient transportation between countries."

"In this way, we can open up the land trade and communication channel from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Guinea, greatly enhancing the convenience of communication between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean."

"It will help countries further expand their respective markets. For example, the Kingdom of South Germany is located on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea in western Africa, which is conducive to exchanges with Atlantic countries, but it is not convenient to communicate with the coastal areas of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. After joining the common market, we can use our East African railways to transport goods to ports in East Africa by rail and road, and then export them to more countries."

"The main role of the common market is to invigorate the market, expand the pie, and thus enhance the competitiveness of our countries and other economies. This is particularly important in this era of increasingly fierce international competition."

Due to interference from extraterritorial countries such as East Africa and the United States, World War I did not cause fundamental changes in the European continent and the overall world pattern. In other words, the global market pie was not redistributed because of this unprecedented war.

Therefore, the contradictions between countries have not disappeared, but have become more acute to a certain extent. However, the major European countries do not have the energy and ability to start another world war for the time being, so they can only continue to maintain the operation of the old order.

This will result in a consequence, just like when the systems of electronic products cannot be updated in a timely manner, the functions of the products will be stuck. This will be reflected in international business and trade, where countries will trip up each other, thus affecting the normal operation of the world market.

The specific manifestation is that after the war, the tariff barriers originally established by various countries were not only not broken down, but were further strengthened, international trade shrank, and the global economy was sluggish.

In the past, European countries were able to alleviate these problems through colonial expansion, but by the end of the last century, the world had basically been divided up, and this approach had obviously become somewhat outdated.

Of course, if war is used to seize other people's colonies and markets, it is a feasible option, but World War I was the result of this option. Under the interference of foreign countries, the two major interest groups in Europe just engaged in a meaningless internal friction, and only non-European foreign powers such as East Africa, the United States, and Japan took advantage of it.

This also led to the major European powers hating the United States and East Africa after the war.

European countries, whose interests were damaged, also implemented more extreme tariff policies after the war to delay the economic development of East Africa and the United States as much as possible. Of course, this is a more decent way of saying it. The less decent way of saying it is to guard against East Africa and the United States further conquering the global market and maintaining their remaining assets.

In order to respond to the counterattacks from European countries, East Africa and the United States obviously cannot do nothing.

For example, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa that East Africa wants to promote is aimed at forming alliances, expanding and maintaining its own market share, and safeguarding East Africa's economic transformation.

"Your Highness Friedrich, under this so-called Common Market for East and South Africa, will it involve East Africa's meddling in the development of our countries or colonies?" The Italian representative mentioned somewhat tactlessly.

Italy itself is not very interested in this meeting. After all, everyone knows that East Africa is setting up the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa to make money and form a circle. However, if the restrictions are completely lifted, which country present can really compete with East Africa? In the end, they will all become the object of exploitation and plunder by East Africa.

In this case, why did Italy send people to attend this unwilling meeting? The reason is very simple, that is, their strength is not enough to say "no" to East Africa.

This is just like the situation in the Caribbean region today. The United States is the emperor of the Caribbean region. If you don't give the United States face, the United States has many ways to make the countries in the region live a life worse than death.

The same situation is faced by Italy in East Africa. The Red Sea colony is now Italy's most important colony, with a total population of millions, but this colony is right under the nose of East Africa.

So Italy had to send government representatives to deal with East Africa, as did Spain and Belgium.

In the past, their concerns were obviously not groundless. After all, from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, East Africa's consistent style of doing things was full of imperialist tyranny.

Since the South African War, East Africa has launched more than one war of aggression. In international affairs, especially when it comes to issues concerning its own interests, it tends to threaten, intimidate, and even resort to force.

However, the wind direction in East Africa has changed. In the field of economic development, Ernst believes that the overbearing style of behavior is not conducive to East Africa's international image in the future. Moreover, with the development of East Africa's economy and industry, if it wants to better integrate into the international market, it does need a better international image as a help.

For example, the Soviet Union in the past basically became a hated existence in the late Cold War. Under the guidance of Western public opinion, many countries jointly boycotted the evil empire of the Soviet Union, which also accelerated the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Although the reason is certainly not that simple, judging from the performance of the United States in the 21st century, international public opinion and image have become factors that must be paid attention to in a country's position and competition in the global landscape.

Therefore, Crown Prince Friedrich comforted: "Italian representative, don't worry that we in East Africa will use this organization to make profits. The starting point for us to establish the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, as I said before, is to strengthen the cooperative relationship between countries."

"As for cooperation! This is naturally done on the basis of equal bilateral relations, so we in East Africa will definitely not let you suffer any loss. Instead, we will actively help you develop."

That being said, in the economic cooperation between East Africa and these countries, East Africa will inevitably take a dominant position. After all, East Africa's economic scale, industrial strength and capital advantages are not comparable to those of these countries.

However, Friedrich would certainly not point this out, and other countries, unless they are brainless fools, would not expose East Africa's wolf ambitions. For all countries participating in this conference, they have only one goal, which is to gain as much benefit as possible.

"As far as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa is concerned, it is all about coming together and bringing out the best in each of us," Crown Prince Friedrich said.

"For example, if you have resources that you are unable to develop or products that you are unable to sell, we in East Africa can provide funds, technology or channels to help you develop or market them."

"The end result is that everyone can make money, while at the same time stimulating the vitality of regional economic development and helping countries get out of the current economic depression. Why not do it?"

Next, East Africa put forward its own specific suggestions on how to build the Common Market for East and South Africa.

Friedrich said: "The first thing is to reduce or even eliminate regional tariff barriers to promote the free flow of goods. Similarly, you can also use this platform to sell your own competitive products to more regions."

"Secondly, we in East Africa will take the lead and other countries will participate in establishing the East and Southern African Development Bank, so as to promote resource development and technological and industrial cooperation in the region, help countries build their own advantageous industries and enhance regional competitiveness."

The main function of the East and Southern African Development Bank is to provide loans to members of the organization, and East Africa can also increase the international status and liquidity of the Rhine Shield through this financial institution, while strengthening East Africa's control over surrounding industries.

Other countries readily accepted this. After all, looking at the current Southeast African region, only East Africa has the ability to provide financial support to help them achieve regional development.

For most countries with relatively weak economic strength, economic development is inseparable from borrowing money, an important way of raising funds. In the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, except for East Africa and Belgium, the economic conditions of other countries and regions can be described as difficult to describe in a few words.

Belgium is a country with a good economy, but it is too small and does not have the ability or courage to compete with East Africa on this issue.

Friedrich went on to say: “Furthermore, it is to integrate and optimize the industrial structure within the region to avoid duplication of construction and vicious competition, define the market share of similar products, achieve resource sharing, and coordinated industrial development.”

Regarding this point, it is actually about solidifying the industries within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa and clarifying the development direction of each key industry. There is no doubt that East Africa will have an advantage.

Of course, East Africa cannot just take advantage of it. Since it is a cooperation, other members of the organization must also benefit from it, such as transferring some low-end and heavily polluting industries that are not suitable for East Africa's development.

Regarding this point, Friedrich also gave a specific feasible case. For example, the Abyssinian Empire, like East Africa, is a high-quality coffee producing area, but in the past it has long been subject to competition and suppression from the East African coffee planting industry due to reasons of technology and production efficiency. East Africa can give up a certain market share to support the development of the Abyssinian Empire's coffee planting industry.

East Africa will certainly not suffer any loss by doing so. As its economy develops, labor costs increase, and the coffee planting industry, which relies heavily on intensive labor, is becoming less and less suitable for East Africa's development.

Therefore, East Africa's transfer of coffee planting to the Abyssinian Empire can not only solve the labor cost problem, but also because of the geographical location of the Abyssinian Empire, it will not be out of East Africa's control.

Secondly, some of the lowest-end planting industries were transferred to the Abyssinian Empire, while other aspects, breeding, planting technology, fertilizers, pesticides, and agricultural machinery were definitely provided by East Africa, and downstream industries, that is, processing and sales were also controlled by East Africa. No matter how you look at it, East Africa could not suffer any loss.

(End of this chapter)