African Entrepreneurship Record-Chapter 601 - 279 Harare City Tobacco Factory

Ernst, the crown prince, is busy wrapping up year-end government work, while Constantine, His Majesty the King of East Africa, after playing with his grandson, has recently gone out to inspect work, or rather to relax.

As he gets older, he actually prefers to go out for walks. As for handling government affairs, it’s better left to his son. Of course, the improvement of East Africa’s transportation conditions has provided Constantine with the means to travel. Previously, Constantine could only wander within Central Province, but now he can venture further afield.

For example, this time he took a special train along the Central Railway of East Africa, directly arriving at East Africa’s newly prosperous city—Harare.

Harare, the capital of Matebel Province, is located near the 18th parallel south, with most East African cities situated in the Southern Hemisphere.

It’s currently summer in the Southern Hemisphere, but Harare’s temperature is only 23 degrees, with cloudy weather, similar to First Town City, so there’s no need to worry about changes in weather and temperature.

Thus, East Africa is a very suitable place for retirement, with summer lacking extreme heat, winter lacking severe cold, and spring-like conditions throughout the year. Of course, the premise is that infrastructure conditions are complete; otherwise, it is inconvenient for the elderly like Constantine.

In the previous life, Harare was already globally known as a summer retreat, a title shared by many East African cities.

"Currently our Harare City has become the largest domestic tobacco distribution market in East Africa. The tobacco factory is one of Harare City’s pillar industries, with daily tobacco transactions exceeding a thousand tons. Nationwide, only Mombasa City and Dar es Salaam City, with their open ports, can compare with Harare City.

However, Mombasa City and Dar es Salaam City mainly focus on the international market, while our Harare City represents both the domestic tobacco consumption level and the popularity of East African tobacco internationally. This year, our Harare City has opened up over ten thousand acres of new tobacco fields, yet supply still falls short of demand," the director of the Harare Tobacco Factory warmly introduced the prospects of Harare City’s tobacco industry to Constantine.

"Harare City’s tobacco has already gained some reputation, especially in the German region, I heard from the beginning Matebel Province’s tobacco was on a high-end route, and now many cigarettes in the German region need to add Matebel tobacco leaves to enhance aromatic substances and increase flavor and taste," Constantine insightfully remarked.

The representative of Matebel tobacco leaves is "Golden Leaf," which from the start was aimed at the high-end cigarette market, targeting the German market, and then subsequently transferred from Germany to Eastern Europe, or else shipped from East Africa to the Far East region.

The German to Eastern Europe route leverages the admiration for industrial power among these semi-industrial or agricultural countries in Western Europe, combined with the solid product quality of East African tobacco, making it very popular.

When exporting to the Far East, it is because here lies the world’s largest independent market apart from Britain and America, with Britain leading a large family of colonies to resist East African goods, and America itself being a tobacco powerhouse, while a host of countries in the Caribbean Sea and Latin America also produce tobacco profusely.

Hence, East Africa’s market is always divided into five parts: German, Eastern Europe, Arab regions, Far East, and others.

The trade volume between the Far East and East Africa is relatively good, but tobacco is not among this category, because the Far East itself has regions suitable for tobacco cultivation, and the Huaihai Trade Region is part of this group.

The greatest support for East Africa’s economy actually comes from Eastern Europe and Arab countries. To these countries, East African products have very high competitiveness.

First of all, Eastern European countries are at high latitudes, lacking tropical crops, and East Africa is the closest tropical crop-producing region to Eastern Europe, with a significant portion of East Africa’s fruits, vegetables, and cash crops being absorbed by Eastern European countries led by Russia.

Germany, although a major buyer of East African agricultural products, also imports considerably from East Africa, especially industrial products and equipment.

Russia, with the highest degree of industrialization among Eastern Europe, actually only surpasses East Africa in product categories slightly, but their geographical position means a high demand for tropical crops, so East Africa’s export volume to Russia far exceeds the import volume.

For example, bananas, the Somali producing area is the closest to Eastern European countries, so importing from East Africa is almost the only choice.

Somalia, although arid in climate, has a large enough area, combined with irrigation from the Juba River and Shebelle River, resulting in a considerable banana yield, capable of supplying the European market massively, already possessing the strength to rival the many island states in the Caribbean Sea.

As for the many Arab countries, aside from proximity to East Africa, they enjoy "equal" treatment from East Africa, much like how Latin American countries now view America as very "just, free, and democratic," shaping America as the "great benefactor" fighting for freedom in the Americas, against major villains like the UK and France. East Africa holds a similar view in the Arab countries, which is truly ironic.

Moreover, the environment in the Arab countries is inherently harsh, lacking almost everything, and since oil hasn’t been discovered yet, East African cheap goods are warmly welcomed in the Arab region.

Hence, the Arab countries and the Far East Empire, besides being markets for East African agricultural products, are simultaneously important markets for East African industrial products.

Returning to tobacco, it’s the same situation, East Africa is the closest tobacco-producing region to them, quantity ample, quality superior, and price low are characteristic of East African tobacco.

Furthermore, East Africa’s exported tobacco, under the packaging of Heixinggen Tobacco Company, has a sense of high-end feeling, imbued with the unique elegance of industrialization, thus widely favored.

This era is different from later ones, everyone has a special obsession with industrial products, being able to use such products is a symbol of quality life, including food.

The director of Harare Tobacco Factory responded to Constantine: "It is true, Your Majesty, our Harare City tobacco has been cultivated over several years, with guaranteed quality always, and we are researching new varieties to further enhance tobacco yield while ensuring tobacco quality."

"Your factory seems quite large, it’s indeed my first time engaging with a tobacco factory," Constantine said.

The director of Harare Tobacco Factory proudly said: "Your Majesty, our factory is entirely designed by architects and tobacco process engineers hired by Heixinggen Tobacco Company from Europe, thus the plant looks very grand and elegant, with a very comfortable working environment. Every machine or room is scientifically and rationally arranged to achieve optimal solutions, enabling workers to orderly reach maximum efficiency, greatly enhancing our Harare City Tobacco Factory’s output."

As he said this, he came to the conveyor belt and said: "Our raw materials are stacked by workers and then processed by machines into the next step. The entire plant is clean and tidy, everyone performs their duties, working according to processes, under such atmosphere, more than eight hundred people are orderly and not chaotic, and it is inseparable from our initial arrangements according to experts."

"Of course, we also encounter some practical issues, like initially our factory’s design was a bit conservative, causing tension now, so new equipment is being added, requiring new workshops, which will disrupt the original layout. Moreover, Europe’s technical iterations are very fast, not knowing how many years until our equipment becomes outdated."

This concern is somewhat redundant because Heixinggen Tobacco Company in the tobacco industry is a monopoly group, controlling most of the discourse power over tobacco in Germany, East Africa, and Eastern Europe, as well as upstream technology.

Even if future tobacco production equipment updates quickly, it won’t affect Heixinggen Tobacco Company, which can maintain its oligopoly in the industry and uphold its technical advantage through various means.

And Ernst, as the boss, certainly wouldn’t allow Heixinggen Tobacco Company to strangle East Africa with technology.

It sounds strange, but it’s indeed possible because Harare City Tobacco Factory is a state-owned enterprise, while Heixinggen Tobacco Company is a private enterprise. Harare City Tobacco Factory is responsible for the production side, while Heixinggen Tobacco Company handles research and sales.

So the two have a cooperative relationship, only the initiative is held by Heixinggen Tobacco Company, and Harare City Tobacco Factory’s role in production is only in the processing field, such as tobacco cultivation, which is under the jurisdiction of the agricultural department.