Chapter 708 East African Standardization Association
In August 1887, the British Parliament passed insulting trademark law provisions, which specifically stipulated that goods imported from Germany must be marked "Made in Germany" to distinguish inferior German goods from high-quality ones. British goods.
Putting down the newspaper in his hand, Ernst sighed with emotion. Some things will not change just because of the intrusion of East Africa, such as the latest Trademark Law in the UK.
The UK’s changes to its trademark law are generally due to pressure from the rapid increase in industrial strength of countries such as Germany. It is a suppression of late-developing countries by advanced countries.
Even if it were another country, it would be the same. As long as it poses a threat to the UK, it would still enjoy the same treatment as Germany. Therefore, this is an inevitable trend in history, unless there is a stupid prime minister in the UK and lobbying Parliament to let it go. Germany.
This situation is almost impossible to happen. After all, the British are famous for their stability now. Unless there is an "anti-intellectual" wave in the entire society like in the previous life, and then kidnap these politicians through the "democratic system", it is not popular in British society now. "Lies" prevail.
Talking back to the impact of the provisions of this bill, let’s not talk about the emotional harm caused by this straightforward humiliation to the Germans, but East Africa, as a “copycat country”, has indeed felt the cold wind.
After all, many products in East Africa are said to be knock-off versions of Germany. For the United Kingdom, East African industrial products are the knock-offs of knock-offs.
For the formulation of standardization, the Hechingen Consortium and East African state-owned enterprises should be viewed separately. Most of the companies under the Hechingen Consortium are innovative enterprises and attach great importance to product quality.
The state-owned enterprises, which are the backbone of the national economy in East Africa, have great deficiencies in this regard, especially the "re-copycat" of the "copycat country" Germany.
There is no way around this. The construction of East Africa's industrial system began in the 1970s, and a complete set of industrial machinery from Germany and Austria was basically imported from scratch. Therefore, it is inevitable to embark on this path.
The process of starting an industry from scratch is the same as the victims of a famine who do not choose what to eat. They fill their stomachs first, and those who are really particular will have long since starved to death.
So now that the UK is cracking down on "German goods", it is actually indirectly hitting "East African goods". Moreover, German technology updates quickly, so East Africa may suffer greater losses than Germany.
“What the British said doesn’t sound good, but it is basically the truth. For Germany’s large and medium-sized enterprises and the German government, this is a very shameful political and economic event, and it has a negative impact on the country’s image. It has had an extremely bad impact, and it also marks a new stage in the competition between the two countries for the commodity market. We can even consider this incident to be the beginning of the shift of the world's factory," Ernst told officials from the industrial sector. .
Don't look at the negative impact of this "insult". In fact, it also represents Britain's recognition of the "helplessness" of German industrial competition, which is a sign of being pushed into a hurry.
Since Britain led the first industrial revolution, Britain is still the "world's factory" today. But now Britain's competitors have emerged, including Germany, the United States, France... The rise of a number of industrial countries has posed a huge threat to British industry and commerce. , and Germany is the "outstanding bird" that the British want to beat.
Quality aside, German products are indeed cheap, and Germany's industrial production capacity has been greatly improved, and its shipment volume is also large. With the addition of "plagiarism", "OEM" and other means, the appearance can be Achieve a one-to-one restoration of the "authentic product".
So when the British bought "domestic products" and then exposed their secrets as soon as they used them, Ernst could completely imagine the scene of "swearing" at home.
“Our export companies are essentially part of the German commodity export trading system, so they will inevitably be affected by this incident. This is a good warning to us, and the domestic standardization of commodity quality should also be re-established. Put it on the agenda and change the international community’s stereotypes about our products!”
Ernst attaches great importance to standardization, but before, East Africa was unable to promote this kind of thing. After all, the machines were imported from Europe, so it was just Being able to do things according to other people's rules, and the talent reserves in East Africa at that time were obviously not able to push East African industry towards the path of independent innovation.
East Africa actually does not have this capability now, but East Africa should have sufficient reserves of basic technical personnel. On the one hand, international students are returning home, and on the other hand, the number of middle school students is increasing. However, there is a big difference between theoretical learning and actual conditions. For the younger generation to directly start transforming East Africa's industrial system, I am afraid there will still be a "frustrating" road ahead.
“Based on the current situation in East Africa, it should not be difficult for the government and enterprises to establish relevant standard-setting institutions, especially on the basis of the original commodity classification. "
Prior to this, East Africa did establish commodity classification at the primary enterprise level, but this commodity classification was based on the sacrifice of national products.
To compete with the international market, we can only select those products with excellent quality and sell them in the international market, while leaving the defective products for domestic digestion.
But now, for the people of East Africa, they still feel that supply exceeds demand. This has a lot to do with production capacity. East Africa is not an industrial country now. In addition to the low urbanization rate, the number of industries is also a big problem.
In the early 19th century, the standard for industrial countries should be that the urbanized population reached more than 30%, but until now, the urbanization level in East Africa is less than 20% (including the black population), but it cannot be eliminated Black East Africans instantly look much better.
And many cities in East Africa should be regarded as mixed agricultural and industrial residential strongholds, especially in the west and north. Many cities are only created by administrative means, not by industrialization.
At present, the only countries recognized to have completed industrialization are the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United States. The rest, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Tsarist Russia, Spain, East Africa, and Japan, are all catching up.
Of course, East Africa is developing the fastest in several industrial fields where it is fully developing, mainly steel, electricity, automobiles, and food processing industries.
A negative example is that the development of textile and machinery manufacturing industries is relatively weak, and East Africa needs to import from the Far East and Germany every year.
“To formulate the standardization organization, we need to discuss and communicate with the royal family and several large foreign-funded enterprises. They have rich experience in this area.”
The royal family and large foreign-owned enterprises plus Hechingen The bank is the Hechingen Foundation. The Hechingen Foundation is the earliest organization to formulate commodity standards.
This is related to the industries engaged in by the Hechingen Consortium. State-owned enterprises in East Africa cannot meet the conditions of the Hechingen Consortium, but they are still more standard than many small European and American workshops.
However, there are many enterprises run by local governments in East Africa. The quality of the products of these enterprises varies. However, in addition to the textile industry and food processing industry, they are also the backbone of the light industry in East Africa.
"The Ministry of Industry will take the lead, with the supervision and guidance of other foreign-funded enterprises in East Africa, to form an organization to guide the production quality of East African goods, and name it the East African Standardization Association."
The East African Standardization Association is actually the former German A replica of the Standardization Association, and the previous German Standardization Association was not established until 1917.
It was just a non-governmental organization in the beginning, and was later incorporated by the German government. In East Africa, the state directly promoted the completion of this matter. This is also the difference between the two.
(End of this chapter)