With the threat of war, East Africa's foreign trade has been severely affected, especially various East African imported bulk goods, including cotton, coal, iron ore and other important industrial raw materials.

Coupled with the stimulus to domestic demand during the war, this led to an imbalance between supply and demand in East Africa.

Under such circumstances, the East African government has to take corresponding measures in order to ensure domestic strategic security.

Part of the textile industry in East Africa is not located in the country, but in the Far East, although there is a complete textile industry system, but the overall scale cannot meet the local demand.

There are many reasons for this, including the late start of cotton cultivation in East Africa, the relative shortage of labor, the small number of planting areas, and the relatively low national investment in heavy industry.

Von der Leyen: "This year, our country has been affected by the war, imported textiles are subject to freight, risk and other problems, and the price remains high, in this case, cultivating and strengthening the local textile industry is an indispensable means. ”

"Customs data show that this year, the total amount of textiles we import has dropped by about 18 percent, but the import price has only decreased by three percent, and the main reason for this problem is the war, the British blockade of our country, China's shipping industry has been greatly affected, and the employment of ships from other countries for cargo transportation is facing price increases and other problems."

"The textile industry is one of the most important industries in the world, and it is also the pillar industry of our country, but compared with other countries in the world, especially compared with Europe and the United States, the textile industry in East Africa is small in scale, low in efficiency, high in production costs, and can not fully meet domestic demand, so strengthening the construction of the textile industry should be put on the government's work agenda."

The textile industry in East Africa can develop completely on a closed market, if there is no advantage in international competition, such as Britain (India), the United States and several other powers, are much stronger than East Africa in the field of textile industry, even Japan.

Although East Africa follows a similar route as Germany, with heavy industry as the core, giving priority to the development of steel, railways, etc., there is an important difference here, that is, the textile industry itself had a good foundation before reunification.

At that time, East Africa may not even have a textile industry, and over the years, four major cotton producing areas have been opened up one after another, namely the Somali production area, the White Nile production area, the northwest production area of the East African Plateau, and the western production area of Matabele Province.

Don't look at the name very high, in fact, except for the northwestern production area of the East African plateau, the production of several other production areas is pitiful, especially the White Nile production area has only one city of Gezira to produce cotton.

As for the future potential of the Matabele production area, it is indeed not small, but it is still in the development stage, and the output of the Somali production area is also very limited, because the cash crops grown in the Somali production area are too rich, and under the limited population and energy, cotton cultivation is only a part of the Somali production area.

Of course, the greatest value of the Somali region lies in the cultivation of long-staple cotton, which is an important pillar of the high-end cotton industry in East Africa, which can only be matched by the White Nile region.

The main crops in the White Nile region are wheat and cotton, so the yield of long-staple cotton can be compared with the two river basins in Somalia.

However, it is undeniable that both have great upside potential, and there is still a large amount of land that has not been effectively used and developed.

For example, many crops in Somalia are concentrated along the Shabelle River and Juba River, and if more canals and water diversion facilities can be built, it can be expanded to both banks, which is actually the development path of Egypt's cultivation along the Nile River.

However, the conditions of the Nile in Egypt are better than those in East Africa, and the natural law of regular flooding can effectively expand the available land, and only the Shabelle River has a similar function in East Africa.

However, the Shabelle River has its own drawbacks, that is, flooding can not only change the cultivation conditions, but also cause flooding, so the Shabelle River must be effectively controlled.

At present, East Africa does not have the energy to do this in the Northern Province, mainly because of population constraints, after all, Egypt is densely populated along the Nile, and the population of the two Somali river basins is less than one-twentieth of Egypt.

At present, Egypt is not as small as in the previous life, and it also includes most of the territory of Sudan, with a population of more than 10 million, the population of the core territory of Egypt should be about 10 million, and Sudan should also have a population of two or three million.

East Africa is short of people, mainly because of the lack of labor population, so it does not have a cost advantage in the development of the textile industry.

However, under the current war situation, the textile industry in East Africa is threatened by war, which leads to the fact that East Africa cannot ignore the development of the textile industry, at least it should be able to meet its own needs.

The bulk of the textile industry is the cotton textile industry, and the rest of the textile industry in East Africa is actually not comparable with foreign countries, including wool textile industry, silk weaving industry and so on.

The only thing that can come out is the hemp textile industry, the hemp textile industry in East Africa is distributed throughout the country, mainly in the eastern region, because it started the earliest, and the government strongly supported the development of the best.

However, the contribution of hemp textile in the field of civil life is certainly not as good as that of the cotton textile industry, especially in the field of clothing.

At present, the major textile enterprises in East Africa are focusing on front-line services, which has led to the impact of the domestic livelihood textile industry.

Ernst said: "The world's big countries basically have advanced textile industries, and we in East Africa naturally cannot be left behind, and the development of the textile industry that matches the national strength of East Africa should also be put on the agenda." ”

"During the first industrial revolution, many representative inventions were closely related to the textile industry, such as water-powered looms, mule machines, steam engines, etc., and it can be said that the textile industry created the hegemony of Britain."

"The huge market needed to develop the textile industry was one of the driving forces for Britain's continuous expansion and development of the colonies."

"In order to ensure the healthy development of China's textile industry, we should not blindly expand production, but should be technology-oriented, and constantly catch up with the international advanced level."

"Of course, our huge land advantage should also be fully utilized, East Africa is blessed with unique climatic conditions that many countries lack, and the increase in cotton production should also give priority to solving the problem of raw materials."

"So in the future, the cotton industry in East Africa should be mainly diversified, forming several core regions, especially the construction of a new major production area on both sides of Lake Malawi."

Ernst focused on Lake Malawi because it was an important area for cotton cultivation in Africa, such as Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania in the past.

For example, Malawi's main sources of revenue are cotton and tobacco, and Zambia's main cotton-growing regions are concentrated in the Eastern Province, which is close to Lake Malawi.

Tanzania and Mozambique are not the only choice, many places in the East African highlands are suitable for cotton cultivation, so there is basically no problem in the whole territory of Tanzania, and cotton cultivation in Mozambique in the past was concentrated in the Zambezi River valley.

Compared with Matabele and Swabian, Hohenzollern, one of the three central provinces in East Africa, has developed relatively slowly, mainly because of its relatively weak resource conditions.

Therefore, to develop the economy of the Hohenzollern province, we should focus on the model of combining light and heavy industries, so as to better make up for the shortcomings of the economy in central East Africa, and at the same time make rational use of East Africa's land resources.

(End of chapter)