Going to town in Africa/Asia works well for any Western tech country.
Take over provinces in Africa, with priority given to estuaries and centres of trade.
Make trade companies wherever you can - they will give you lots of trade power, naval force limits and bonus merchants. In fact it's generally best to focus on trade company regions, plus certain key junctions like Alexandria or Gulf of Aden. Use the extra force limits to build a big fleet of light ships that will reinforce your trade power as needed.
If you dominate your main trade port and you can steer trade there, do it. Otherwise just collect wherever you can do so without too much competition.
Coastal Africa per se doesn't have that much trade value (inland is not bad, but it's harder to control trade inland), but once you get into India, the money really starts flowing in.
