African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1611 North African Free Trade Area

With the completion of the North African railway, East Africa is also preparing to develop its infrastructure around this line, and Darfur, a region that was originally not very important, will naturally see significant developments.

First and foremost, it must be made clear that along the entire North African railway, especially along the approximately 1,500-kilometer line from northern Darfur to southern Italian Libya, the towns, population, and freight demand are negligible.

Along the 1,500-kilometer journey, there are only a handful of small oases and water sources, such as Jiaofu Town, which is the largest town along this railway line, with a population of only a thousand and no output of its own.

Therefore, to tap the potential of the North African railway, we can only start from both ends of the railway. The situation in Italian Libya is mainly under the jurisdiction of the Italian government, while the sections of the North African railway in Darfur and East Africa are under the responsibility and management of East Africa.

East Africa, Rhine City.

Crown Prince Frederick said at a government meeting: "Now that the North African railway is open, the land trade route from East Africa to Italy and North Africa to the entire Mediterranean market has been completed."

"How are the preparations progressing in the Darfur region and the relevant provinces within the mainland?"

East Africa, naturally, would not fight an unprepared battle for the construction of the North African Railway. Long before the strategic project of the North African Railway was officially determined, it had already begun to prepare related matters.

Minister of Land Resources, Cerlaed, was the first to report: "Your Highness, we have conducted a detailed survey of the Darfur region for nearly ten years, based on the local conditions."

“We summarize Darfur’s economic development advantages into three key points. First, transportation is one of Darfur’s most important advantages. It is located at the intersection of four landlocked countries, namely us, the Kingdom of South Germany, Egypt, and Italy.”

"Moreover, the opening of the North African Railway has greatly enhanced Darfur's transportation status, which can make Darfur a regional transportation hub."

"Therefore, Darfur is required to strengthen its ties not only with us, but also with Italy, South Germany, and Egypt. Darfur may become an important center for commercial and trade exchanges among our four countries."

"Furthermore, Darfur can leverage the North African Railway to extend its trade routes further, such as by strengthening trade with French Libya, Tunisia, or other countries and regions in Europe and the Middle East."

Undoubtedly, Darfur's geographical location was far from advantageous in the age of maritime transport, and its land location was not particularly favorable either.

That being said, land transportation remains Darfur's lifeline for development. Darfur's current situation is similar to that of other Central Asian countries; they have no other choice but to develop land transportation.

However, Darfur is fortunate in that it is located above East Africa. If it were not a colony of East Africa, let alone a project like the North African Railway, Darfur would probably have had a problem even building a decent road.

Cherled continued, "For Darfur right now, the most important thing is to strengthen cooperation with the Kingdom of South Germany, open up a trade route from the Kingdom of South Germany to southern Darfur, and take on the role of transshipment of goods."

Darfur is adjacent to the most densely populated and economically developed area of ​​the Kingdom of South Germany. Therefore, in theory, the two countries have a natural basis for cooperation, especially for the eastern part of the Chari River basin in South Germany that borders Darfur.

As for Egypt, its Sudanese territory, due to political reasons, needs to invest more time in negotiations to cooperate with Darfur.

Sudan is actually an ideal region for Darfur to develop trade, because the two are not far apart, and with the North African Railway, Darfur has become one of the best choices for goods from Sudan to reach Europe as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, Sudan's development is not entirely up to it; it faces two major obstacles: Egypt and Britain.

Without a doubt, Britain would not allow Sudan and Darfur to have too much interaction. Egypt's attitude toward East Africa is also wavering; it is quite fearful of East Africa.

Just as Poland and western Ukraine faced the Soviet Union, Egypt was also worried about the northward expansion of East African power. Although East Africa had no designs on Egypt, historical experience told Egypt that East Africa was definitely a more formidable country than Britain.

Britain at most wanted to economically enslave Egypt, exploiting the Egyptians for its own gain. In the past, however, Britain had never given anyone a way to survive in East Africa, having destroyed countless countries in Africa and being adept at solving problems once and for all through physical means.

Darfur is a good example; the people living in Darfur today are a completely different group.

Of course, Egypt's idea was not wrong. At least during Ernst's time of absolute power in the empire, if given the opportunity, he would definitely have reformed Egypt to break the link between Arab influence in the Middle East and North Africa, namely Egypt. Egypt is both a Middle Eastern country and a North African country, so it is a place where the two regions meet.

However, history did not give Ernst such an opportunity, which allowed Egypt to escape disaster. In the early days, East Africa was too weak, and Egypt had Britain and even the whole of Europe backing it up.

No European country, especially the major powers, wanted to see East Africa occupy Egypt, because that would allow East Africa to completely monopolize the maritime trade routes between East and West and control the lifeline of the whole of Europe.

Therefore, it was better for Egypt to remain in British hands than to be controlled by East Africa. After all, Britain could at most use the Suez Canal to target its own hostile countries, but it would never dare to provoke public anger.

East Africa is completely different. Given its size, if Egypt were to fall into East African hands, even if Europe were to become a unified entity, it would be powerless against East Africa, which would easily create a sense of insecurity throughout Europe.

In dealing with this issue, East Africa plays a role similar to the Soviet Union and Russia in its previous life. If possible, Europe will obviously stop at nothing to weaken and suppress this superpower.

Fortunately, in the early 20th century, Europe was not a unified whole, so Europeans could not unite. Moreover, although East Africa could also exert pressure on Europe, the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara Desert separated the two sides, so the deterrent effect of East Africa on Europe was far less intense than that of the Soviet Union.

At the same time, Germany after the reunification of Germany and Austria was unprecedentedly powerful. Therefore, Germany had a certain degree of confidence in the face of superpowers such as the Soviet Union and East Africa. Europe at that time was not completely reduced to a spectator in the world order and could play a certain leading role.

After discussing the transportation issue, Cherlaed moved on to the second point: "To revitalize Darfur's economy through transportation, the general situation is as follows: Darfur's second advantage is agriculture, which is also Darfur's most important industry at present."

"Darfur is an arid region, but its southern part has significant untapped agricultural potential. If this potential were realized, southern Darfur could support millions of people, whereas Darfur currently has only a few hundred thousand." "In agriculture, Darfur's main specialty is gum arabic, a crop widely used in the food industry. However, relying on a single crop is not very helpful for Darfur."

"Therefore, Darfur's future development should focus on accelerating the expansion into new sectors from a technological perspective, especially in the field of cash crop cultivation. We believe that Darfur still has considerable potential, for example, in the cultivation of many tropical cash crops that cannot be grown in Europe."

"Darfur can make progress in agriculture by breeding superior varieties and promoting water-saving agriculture."

Darfur's agricultural development conditions are far from ideal, but due to its vast land and sparse population, the people of Darfur are doing relatively well for now.

However, from a long-term development perspective, Darfur must pay a greater price and make more effort to become wealthy, whether it is transportation or agriculture, as mentioned earlier.

Cherled said, "Finally, Darfur's advantage, which is currently the most helpful to Darfur's economy, is the region's rich mineral resources, which is also a major achievement of our Ministry of Land and Resources in recent years."

Mineral resource development is the only shortcut for Darfur to achieve a leapfrog economic development, which is why Cerlaed said this is the most important point.

Darfur can quickly recoup its investment by developing its local mineral resources and then invest in infrastructure projects in areas such as transportation and agriculture.

After all, the most important problem for Darfur to achieve transportation and agricultural development is the lack of money, while the revenue from mineral resources is stable and huge, provided that Darfur itself has abundant mineral resources.

Cherled was quite confident about this, saying, "Through our explorations in recent years, Darfur has relatively abundant mineral resources with great potential."

"Currently, we have discovered several important mineral resources with development value in Darfur, primarily oil and natural gas."

"Several oil and gas fields have been discovered in southern Darfur, belonging to the same petroleum geological distribution zone as the Jezirapin oil field. Our experts also speculate that southern Darfur has the conditions for oil formation, but with current technology, it is very difficult to develop them."

In the past, both South Sudan and North Sudan were important oil-producing countries, so it is not surprising that Darfur, which belongs to North Sudan, also has some oil resources. Of course, its reserves are certainly not comparable to those of the Nile Province in East Africa.

However, Darfur's oil and gas resources are also an important asset for Darfur, especially given its relatively small population.

"Secondly, Darfur has abundant gold reserves. If these gold mines can be effectively developed, they will definitely play a huge role in promoting Darfur's development."

Before the colonization of East Africa, Darfur was an important gold-producing region in North Africa, but it was not effectively developed due to backward technology and low production efficiency.

"Our Ministry of Land and Resources also recommends that the local government prioritize the development of local gold mines in order to complete the accumulation of initial capital."

"Besides oil and gas resources and gold, Darfur also has an important strategic resource, namely, abundant uranium deposits, which are high-grade minerals. This is a strategic material that the Empire should pay attention to."

East Africa has been developing its nuclear industry, but progress has been slow. This is not because East Africa lacks technology and personnel, but because it seeks stability. After all, the dangers of radioactive materials are well-known, and East Africa's research in this area is far more cautious than that of European and American countries.

Furthermore, East Africa places greater emphasis on the transformation of technological breakthroughs during the research process, thereby achieving tangible benefits more quickly.

This is not the Cold War era of the past, when the Soviet Union and the United States, for political reasons, were also very eager for quick success in scientific research, chasing each other and demonstrating the superiority of their systems.

This is exemplified by the space programs of the two countries in the past. Both countries spent a great deal of financial and material resources, but the returns were pitifully low, more like vanity projects. This further exacerbated the Soviet Union's financial woes and led to the decline of the people's livelihood, becoming one of the important reasons for its collapse. In contrast, the United States achieved seemingly brilliant success. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many technological achievements were not properly handled. Some of them were even lost in the 21st century due to rigid systems, personnel decline, poor record management, and the bankruptcy of related companies.

For example, in the US moon landing program, many instruments and equipment were made entirely by hand in order to speed up the process, without being transformed, integrated, and applied to real-world industries. Without continuous government subsidies, the relevant technical personnel and companies naturally did not value these technologies.

Currently, East Africa places great emphasis on the commercialization of research results and the registration of breakthrough technologies in its aerospace industry development.

Of course, East Africa does not face the same competitive pressure as during the Cold War, which is why it can steadily advance the development of these large-scale projects and scientific research programs at a leisurely pace.

Even so, East Africa is now a leader in nuclear engineering and aerospace engineering, because there are not many players in this field to begin with. The United States and Germany have not yet completely recovered from the aftermath of the Great Depression, the Soviet Union has not yet completed its industrialization, and other countries are even less capable of doing so.

Cherled said, "Uranium is a strategic asset for the future, but it doesn't mean much right now, just like the oil and gas resources in Darfur. That's why I previously suggested developing the local gold mines first."

“Besides gold mines, Darfur’s iron and copper mines, as well as kaolin, also have large-scale mining value, but the returns from both are not as high as those from gold, so they can be developed after gold.”

"These are some of the key minerals we have discovered in Darfur so far. Darfur has many other mineral resources, but they are not large in scale."

Darfur has abundant mineral resources, given its vast area of ​​over 800,000 square kilometers. If Darfur were a country, it would be much larger than many countries in the world.

The current findings of the East African Department of Land and Resources are far from the limit of Darfur's mineral resources, because most of Darfur is desert or has an extremely harsh natural environment, which has prevented effective exploration.

However, even the current survey results are a huge asset for Darfur, a country with only a few hundred thousand people.

Crown Prince Frederick said: "Very good, so in Darfur, its transportation advantages should be activated first, and in this regard, Darfur should be developed into a free trade zone in North Africa, thereby accelerating its connection with neighboring countries and regions and promoting the development of commerce and trade centered on the North African railway."

(End of this chapter)