Angola is located in the southwestern part of Africa, bordered by the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the north, Zambia to the east, Namibia to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The northern region mostly experiences a tropical savanna climate, the southern region has a subtropical climate, and the high-altitude areas have a temperate climate.
The country is primarily composed of plains, hills, and plateaus, with a total area of 1,246,700 square kilometers, including a 1,650-kilometer coastline. The capital city is Luanda.
From a historical perspective, the founding of this country is inextricably linked to the Portuguese. In 1482, a fleet of Portuguese colonizers first arrived, and in 1576, they established the city of Luanda, which marks the beginning of present-day Angola.
Between 1884 and 1885, Angola was designated as a Portuguese colony. In 1951, Portugal changed Angola into an "overseas province" and sent a governor to rule it.
Starting in the 1950s, Angola saw the establishment of three national liberation organizations that successively initiated armed struggles for national independence in the 1960s. On November 11, 1975, Angola became a modern independent nation.
In other words, this country's transition from primitive tribes to a modern state was almost entirely orchestrated by the Portuguese, which is why the entire nation has a striking sense of dislocation.
For instance, the capital city of Luanda appears very modern, with skyscrapers densely packed and the night skyline brilliantly illuminated, and the people walking the streets are indistinguishable from those in major cities in Europe and America.
In fact, in 2014, the cost of living in this city ranked first among all major cities globally, surpassing traditional cities like New York and Tokyo.
However, on the other hand, as soon as you leave the city, you'll find that other parts of the country are impoverished and underdeveloped. For example, the per capita GDP in 2019 was only $2,973, with a per capita daily income of just 57 yuan, placing Angola in the "lower-middle-income country" category.
Overall poverty has also led to dire living conditions in Angola, with a poverty rate as high as 47.6%, an unemployment rate of 20%, an illiteracy rate of 34%, and a newborn mortality rate of 28.5‰.
In terms of physical health, the adult HIV infection rate in Angola is 2%, and the malnutrition rate is 18.6%. According to the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index for 2019, Angola ranked 149th out of 189 countries, falling into the "medium human development" category.
Therefore, as Liang En left the city, he could clearly see that the farther he moved away from the city, the worse the surrounding environment and infrastructure became. After just half an hour of leaving the capital, the roadside transitioned from a bustling urban area to a scene resembling a primitive landscape.
The roads were similarly affected; some European-standard asphalt roads could be found in certain communities, but at the city’s edge, these became crumbling concrete roads, and beyond that, they turned into dirt roads.
"Are we sure we're not on the wrong road?" Jeanne asked, puzzled as she looked at the dust on both sides of the car windows that was thick enough to be used as a smoke screen. "The map clearly shows this as a national highway."
"That's correct, this is indeed a national highway," Liang En said after consulting with a nearby security officer. "But in this country, roads far from the cities are just like this, even the national highways."
"And from a certain perspective, we're actually lucky—at least it's not raining. Otherwise, this road would turn into a huge swamp, the kind where even tanks wouldn't be able to pass through—it would become a complete quagmire."
Historically, the prolonged civil war in this country was undoubtedly connected to its terrible logistics. At least from the current situation, it’s clear that the various factions during the civil war could only engage in defensive battles; offensive battles were impossible due to logistical challenges.
"So, in the entire African region, the normal mode of transportation is by plane because, compared to simple airfields, neither the railways nor roads here can sustain the necessary traffic."
Liang En had always felt the urge to complain about the infrastructure here. He had known about the poor state of infrastructure before, but he hadn’t expected it to be this bad.
Undoubtedly, this presented one of the key challenges Liang En faced in developing industries here. After all, his products wouldn’t be high-value, low-volume goods like gold or gemstones, so the transportation problem was a significant concern.
However, this didn’t mean they had no solutions. At least during their discussions on the plane, they decided to utilize nearby rivers for critical transportation tasks.
According to the information they obtained, while this river couldn’t compare to a major one, the stretch of the river from the location where Liang En planned to build a reservoir downstream was relatively smooth, making it suitable for navigation.
Although the actual transport capacity would be far less than the theoretical capacity due to insufficient hydrological surveys and the fact that the river was largely untouched by human intervention, it would still be possible to navigate ships with a capacity of 100 to 120 tons.
This meant they could use these ships to transport goods all the way to Luanda, the capital of Angola, making it convenient for both local sales and export.
"Since we are currently only temporarily employing locally available ships, which are in terrible condition, we still need to travel by car for safety reasons. Once our ships arrive, we can switch to water transport next time," Liang En said to Jeanne.
This brings us to the point where we must commend the hardworking and resilient Chinese people. The construction of the hydroelectric station and the farm had almost entirely been entrusted to the Chinese. Under the generous salary and bonus policies, the engineering personnel here put in 120% of their effort.
For instance, during the farm's construction, they directly hired local workers to start growing fast-maturing vegetables and then sold these vegetables to the capital, Luanda.
However, due to the scale of cultivation and transportation issues, this business didn’t make much money. At most, it could cover part of the transportation costs.
But the fact that it wasn’t losing money was already a positive outcome for both of them. The only purpose of selling vegetables directly was to avoid sending empty ships back after transporting the necessary items for building the reservoir and farm, at least allowing them to bring something back.
In other words, as long as this operation didn’t lose money, it was sufficient. The fact that they were making a profit now only indicated one thing: this business had great potential.
Because if they could make a profit under such unfavorable conditions, the profits would naturally increase as the business developed.
Of course, they had investigated this area and confirmed that increasing the number of ships wouldn’t impact the operations of existing ships, allowing them to manage additional vessels in the future.
These 120-ton motor vessels, capable of being used for inland and coastal shipping, were currently being constructed in a South African shipyard. This was because there weren’t many factories in Angola capable of building ships of this class, and those that could were inferior in both quality and cost compared to South Africa.
"We’ve already started training crews for the first two ships," the younger of the two assistants said at this point. "It’s a bit challenging to find people with a high school education or higher in this country."
"That’s already quite good, considering that there are several countries in this region with even lower levels of education. Angola is already relatively better off." Liang En had long been prepared for these difficulties, so he had also made adequate preparations.
"Besides, the ships won’t be completed for some time, so there’s enough time for training. Especially since we’re hiring technical staff, not researchers, so sometimes a lower education level isn’t too big of an issue."
Thank you for reading this far! You can access more chapters from HERE by joining my Patreon community. You'll gain exclusive early access to the COMPLETE NOVEL.
As a member of my Patreon community, here is what you'll get:
- Early access to the COMPLETE NOVEL.
- You also get access to all the novels I'm translating, you can find them here HERE.
- You Get Ad-free Chapters.
- Plus, you can Cancel your membership at any time.
