June 7, 1930.
Lorraine Province, Bulawayo city.
Since 1896, when Bulawayo had broken away from the former Matabele Province, been incorporated into the new Lorraine Province, and become its provincial capital, it had become one of the centers in East Africa's Bohemia Industrial Zone capable of standing toe-to-toe with Harare city. Their relationship was much like that between Lubumbashi and Kitwe in East Africa's Copperbelt: both had originally belonged to the industrial system, then gone their separate ways.
Of course, unlike Kitwe, which had been incorporated into Central Province, one important mission behind Bulawayo's separation from the former Matabele Industrial Zone had been to drive regional economic development, especially shouldering the responsibility of balancing the economic development of the vast Kalahari Basin region.
Thus, Lorraine Province roughly covered southwestern Zimbabwe from his previous life, along with most of central and eastern Botswana.
By 1929, Bulawayo city's population had grown to 740,000, placing it among the upper ranks of East Africa's medium-sized cities. It also possessed considerable industrial strength. As early as the previous century, Bulawayo had already become one of East Africa's industrial cities, particularly renowned nationwide for the two traditional industries of textiles and steel.
After becoming the capital of Lorraine Province, Bulawayo's industry advanced another step, developing in every direction and achieving impressive results in both heavy and light industry.
In terms of heavy industry, Lorraine Province possessed extremely abundant coal resources. For instance, the largest coal mines in Zimbabwe and Botswana in his previous life were all located within what was now East Africa's Lorraine Province. Iron ore was also distributed throughout the region to a certain extent, providing the foundation for Bulawayo's early steel industry.
Beyond that, Lorraine Province also had abundant chromite, manganese ore, nickel ore, and more. This made Bulawayo an important production area