Africa and Middle East
ZhangXing ( ??? )
Student ID: So6153
Research Paper Suoerviser : Dr. Sekou Conde
Minzhu University of China
2006-2007 Academic Year
ABSTRACT : Africa has a bright civilization with Middle East. Both have Traditional culture ??/font>rich Natural resources and custom .but they also have the same problems. Trying to find some similarities and relations with their problems are going to be the focus of this paper.
African and Middle East countries before the Second World War were colonial countries; afterwards they are independent one after another, but falls into the civil war dispute and Struggle in border dispute. Although these countries’ resources are extremely rich, for example: diamond and petroleum, but living with serious problems: Racial, religious and terrorist question with border dispute etc... These questions are affecting their economic development.
Nowadays under the economic globalization, with the other countries paying their attention to the economy development, African and the Middle East also must adjust the policy to raise the standard of living their people and protect stability and advancing economy as their goals.
Introduction:
Africa has about 56 countries and areas at present. In the geography, Africa was divided into North Africa, East Africa, the West Africa, Central Africa and the South Africa. The majority Africa country use outside Africa language as their official language, the non- local language which are widely used are Arabic, French, English, Portuguese, etc... and most African believe in Islam, the rest of people believe Christianity and others. Africa has rich minerals, the most important 50 kinds of minerals in the world, and at least 17 kinds of minerals’s quantitities among of them are No.1 in the world. According to recent international mining industry statistical data, mineral resource reserves of Africa's platium, manganetse chromium, ruthenium, iridium, etc., accounted for above 80% in the world ultimate reserve. Gold, diamond, germanium, cobalt and vanadium, etc., occupied above the half of the world’s reserve. Uranium, tantalum, cesium, bauxite, fluorine stone, zirconium, graphite and hafnium also accounted for above 30%. Even though the Sahara Desert is called "the barren land", it is the huge energy treasure house, the massive underground resouces such as petroleum which have not been expoited, its periphery Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Nigeria, etc., are the important petroleum export countries. For example, Libya's average exploitation oil reach as high as 1.5million barrels everyday. In addition, South Africa is the biggest gold production and export country in the world, up to now it has produced more than 40,000 tons golds, occupied 2/5 of the gold ultimate output in human history. The Zambian copper reserve amount to more than 900 million tons, approximately composes 15% of the world reserve, the annual copper aapproximately produces 360,000 tons, it is called "country of the copper mine"[??/span>]
In addition, Africa has the rich agricultural product, for instance,cocoa, coffee,cotton, wheat, corn, sorghum, millet, cassava , palm oil and so on. In 1994, the cocoa output reached 131. 60,000 tons, approximately compose above the half of the world ultimate output, Ketediwa, the cocoa production takes number one in the world. Last year, it’s cocoa output export amounted to 850,000 tons, accounted for above 1/3 of the world’ output. In 1994, the African coffee output was 102. 20,000 tons, the exportation approximately composed 17% in the world market; The palm oil output reaches 200. 30,000 tons, approximately compose 70% of the whole world’ output. Egypt's long textile fiber cotton is famous for the high grade and good quality, the annual output surpasses 900,000 packages.
Economy: Although it has the rich natural resources, Africa is the continent of the lowest economy level in the world, majority are so poor that they could not provide the basic living standard for people.
Middle East is called “Mideast”too, south area of Mediterranean Sea. It is from Mediterranean Sea to Persian Gulf. In general it includes Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Aman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Saudi Arabia andYemen, Palestinian, the Magrebe country (Algeria, Libya, Morocco,Tunisia) as well as Sudan, Mauritania and Somalia, they are regarded as belonging to the middle east generally because historical culture reason. Turkey and Cyprus also belong to the part of Mideast in the geography, but they think that they belong to Europe. The north Afghanistan also relates with Middle East closely.
Religion :Middle East's various nationalities were still retaining their own religious belief and customs, the majority inhabitant believe the Islamism, the minority inhabitant believe Christianity, the Judaism and other religions. The Islamism, Christianity and the Judaism all regard Jerusalem as a holy city. Beliefe in different religions is one of the important reasons of the unstablity of Middle East.
Natural resources: The Middle East has the richest pretroeum. Since the discovery of petroleum, the Middle East person's destiny has changed, Specially in 20th century 70, petroleum prices rose suddenly, the large wealth wells up into the Middle East, as if in a night, these oil-producing country transited from very poor into wealth. Nowadays, the Middle East is the biggest Oil-producing countries in the world, and is the area of the largest output of petroleum. The middle East oil mainly distributes in Persian Gulf and the coast area. Their petroleum mainly export to most developed countries, such as Western Europe, US, Japan and so on. Therefore, they affect the world economy development .
Middle East has rich oil resource, but it is most famous for the contineous war, the boundary and resource dispute. Some scholars thought, the reason of Middle East's war is mainly : The nationality (different religions and faith), the petroleum, the water (water resources are really too few).[??/span>]
economy: The Economy tendency decelerates extremely. Shortage of foreign exchange and the debt question have been quite serious, to the Middle East economy the war is another misfortune.
From the introduction above, we may come to find the same sitution:
Africa and the Middle East have the place which many is interlinked, like Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, Morocco,Somalia , Libya, both belong to the African country and belong to the middle east country. Most people believe in Islam,a few people believe in Catholic and Christianity in this countries.
On the language, majority speaks the Arabic concentrate in these two places in the world.Until now, the Arabic mainly distributes in the Africa and Middle East ,causes their very complicated relationship. a splendid ancient civilization, rich natural resources, the same religious belief . Similarly, they are also facing some common problems : nowadys,under the economic globalization, All countries are working to develop their own economic circumstances, African and the Middle Eastern countries also face the problems of economic development.
The Africa and Middle east have the vital significance to the world economics.It takes pride by the rich natural resource including the world known prospective oil about 2/3 ,massive labor forces and traditional business .But, It also has the economical and the financial multiplicity among these countries: in the economical scale, the population,the department proportion of public-operated and operate privately, in addtion,they have a huge difference between the exterior trade and the financial relation .
After Second World War, especially from the 20th century 70's, followed the Economical globalization,the world economics is entering the development phase.The globalization, for the developing countries, especially the middle east and Africa , has been brought the opportunity, also the challenge.
Current General economical condition of Africa and Mideast
Even if it does not have the war, Africa and middle east countries’economy deceleration is extremely obvious,for instance, Egypt, Lebanon and Israel . Because "9.11" event and the long-term conflict between Pakistan and Israel, these state investments and the trade condition worsen increasingly, shortage of foreign exchange and the debt question were quite serious in the prewar. The war let the Middle East economy to be another misfortune.
Therefore,Viewing the current situation, there are still some questions in this area: (1) coordinated development of regional economy is strained because important resources are unevenly distributed, such as It is a difficult problem that oil and water resources has plagued in Africa and Middle East. (2) [...]
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