In this nationwide industrial review, the most outstanding achievements were still concentrated in the field of internal-combustion vehicles, which was also one of the areas Ernst and the East African government focused on most.
"By the end of last year, the total number of internal-combustion vehicles in our country had reached 700,000, covering the three major categories of automobiles, trucks, and tractors. Our automobile ownership ranked first in the world, exceeding 170,000 vehicles; trucks numbered 200,000; tractors exceeded 300,000. More than one million kilometers of new highways had been built, while three million kilometers of tractor roads had been repaired or newly constructed."
In this regard, East Africa had truly pulled far ahead. In automobiles alone, East Africa's vehicle ownership exceeded the combined total of every other country in the world. The United States, ranked second worldwide, had only just surpassed 10,000 automobiles, while East Africa's automobile output was more than ten times that of the United States.
Moreover, over the next decade, the East African automobile industry would usher in a new round of explosive growth. Through this industrial upgrading effort, East Africa had consolidated and upgraded its domestic automobile industry, forming seven major automobile manufacturers covering fifty-nine automobile brands, spread across more than thirty cities and over four hundred factories nationwide.
In present-day East Africa, automobile, truck, and tractor manufacturing had all become emerging industries capable of standing toe-to-toe with traditional industries.
Corresponding to the great development of East Africa's internal-combustion vehicles, from colonization to nationhood and then to the present, Ernst felt that his main task had been infrastructure construction. Aside from new construction, East Africa's current infrastructure development could be divided into three major parts.
Nationwide, it meant rebuilding the road system and hardening road surfaces to provide a foundation for the development of the automobile