February 1, 1936.
Rhine City.
After multiple rounds of meetings and revisions, East Africa's eighth five-year economic development plan was officially released. This plan clearly set the broad direction for East Africa's push toward the Third Technological Revolution.
It covered numerous areas. In energy, the concept of new energy was proposed for the first time, including nuclear power, wind power, photovoltaic power, batteries, and so on. In transportation, aviation was a key development direction, along with high-speed railway research and development. Information technology included computers, semiconductor materials, integrated circuits, and more.
The release of the Eighth Five-Year Plan came noticeably later than in previous years, which precisely reflected East Africa's transformation within the world economy: from a learner and pursuer of the past into an independent explorer and leader.
Moreover, this Eighth Five-Year Plan differed significantly from its predecessors in that it placed scientific and technological research, development, and innovation first. Past East African economic plans had placed industry first.
Many of the concepts and cutting-edge technologies proposed by East Africa during the Eighth Five-Year Plan period had yet to be broken through or applied, so naturally there was no question of related industries developing and expanding.
East Africa, Maputo.
As the Empire's largest city in the south, Maputo's development in recent years had advanced by leaps and bounds. It had become the largest comprehensive city in southern East Africa and, in 1932, entered the ranks of East Africa's seventeen major cities, with a population exceeding one million.
The original largest city in the south, New Hamburg City, had instead been surpassed by Maputo industrially because of its port conditions.
Over the past decade or so, southern East Africa had been one of the Empire's fastest-developing regions. Maputo had thus entered the fast lane of development, becoming the principal