Calling Jezira City and Juba major cities was actually giving their economic status within East Africa too much credit. Within the Nile River Basin, Jezira City and Juba City ranked first and second respectively, but across East Africa as a whole, the two cities could at most be considered mid-sized.
East Africa's development of the Nile River Basin had also been rather limited. Taking agriculture as an example, agricultural development within the Nile River Basin did not even match that of several provinces on the Azande Plateau, which itself was considered a relatively underdeveloped part of East Africa.
By contrast, the neighboring Great Lakes Region was entirely different. Not only did its grain output firmly rank first in East Africa, but its population and economy also stood among the leaders. The Great Lakes Region's main problem was its low per capita income, and that was inseparably linked to the relative lack of local industry.
In the past, East African investment in the Great Lakes Region had been concentrated in agriculture, so industrial development had naturally lagged far behind. That was merely a policy-related factor, and the proposal for the Great Lakes Region Economic Belt was, to a certain extent, meant to loosen the restraints on industrial development there.
As for the negative impact of local industrial development on agriculture, it was negligible, amounting to nothing more than labor and farmland protection. After East Africa opened up its free market, even if the Great Lakes Region's economy were not developed, the population would still flow into other regions. As for farmland protection, it was still too early for East Africa to worry about that.
At present, East Africa's total population was only a little over one hundred million, and its population density ranked merely in the middle among the great powers.