The North African Railway affected East Africa's northwestern regions, which were relatively underdeveloped within East Africa. Their industrial and agricultural output was limited, while maritime shipping was more competitive. Take the local forestry resources: backed by the immensely rich Congo rainforest, they had abundant timber, yet as a bulk commodity, timber was clearly more suitable for export by sea.
The highly developed economic and industrial areas along East African West Coast—the Angola Region of the previous life—also currently relied mainly on maritime shipping for their own commodity exports. Departing from there, exporting via the North African Railway was not much more convenient than sea transport.
Lieutenant Colonel Lara said, "Spain's future commercial activities with East Africa will still center on East African West Coast, so we need not worry about the North African Railway's impact."
"Besides, that is not what we should be concerned about now. If we do not overthrow the Republican Government, Spain's future fate will have nothing to do with us. So long as East Africa can provide us with tangible support now, that would be the best outcome."
"I do not care whether the aid supplies provided by the Italians are produced in their own country or procured from East Africa. If it is the latter, that would actually benefit us more. After all, East African goods are always far better in quality than Italian ones."
In 1936, Italian-made goods themselves carried labels such as "cheap," "inferior," and "knockoff." Thus, it was no wonder that even a Spaniard like Lieutenant Colonel Lara looked down on Italian products.
Granted, at this stage Spain's industry was even weaker than Italy's, but Italy had not surpassed Spain's industry for very many years.
At the same time, though Spain's domestic industry was poor, its people had many choices in goods.