All in all, the shortcomings and weak links of these regions were far too glaring; their overall conditions were nowhere near those of the Great Lakes Region.
Therefore, the Great Lakes Region would be one of the key areas of development during East Africa's Fourth Five-Year Plan. This had always been the pattern of East African economic development: beginning with the eastern coast, then developing the central regions through the Westward Movement, and finally moving on to the new western development.
Now, at last, it was the Great Lakes Region's turn—a region that could be considered one of East Africa's old guard. After all, it had been incorporated into East African territory relatively early.
Having finished with the Great Lakes Region, Ernst turned the topic southward. The south could in fact be understood as South Africa, but with the British South African colony in existence, calling it the southern region was more accurate.
"Over the past twenty-odd years, our development of the southern region has been relatively conservative. After all, the south has been part of our country for only a short time, and in the early years we faced immense national defense pressure," Ernst said.
The southern region, particularly the northeastern South African Plateau, had been fully incorporated into East Africa for only a little over twenty years. After East Africa acquired the South African Plateau, the recently defeated British Government had hardly been someone easy to provoke.
Thus, East Africa had never gone all out in developing the south. Britain, having lost the South African War, was already bitter enough; if East Africa had undertaken large-scale exploitation of the mineral resources of what had once been South Africa, Britain might truly have stamped its feet in fury.
The gold resources of the South African Plateau alone were enough